So, why is it that I believe that keeping my nose to the grindstone is more effective than getting on a jet bound to Rio de Janeiro and have a few heated and a few less passionate discussions about what this earth needs now?

It is a fair question that the two beings in my heart answer with loud voices. The egoistical being just tries to avoid getting on jets bound anywhere with the possible exception of Japan although that choice is not obvious and I am not inclined to justify it either. The other more reasoned being contends that what the world needs is action, not talk. Don’t get me wrong. It is not that we do not need to talk, we do. What is not clear is who should be talking to whom. It could be that the right people are already talking to each other, however there is little evidence that anybody is listening.

What I see happening is people, the so-called world leaders, are interested in getting re-elected or saving face. Global climate change, poverty eradication, social sustainability, disaster prevention does not really seem to be on their agendas. Syria is a slaughter house and the world do not take action, watches idly and perhaps the UN Security Council’s president is disappointed about the continued violence. Still, nothing is happening. This always reminds me of a painting, could be from one of the Brueghel and I have vague memories of seeing it in the Musée d’Orsay, where in what at first glance looks like an idyllic scene, on closed inspection there are all sorts of less than idyllic scenes that include a dog shitting, a corpse… and so it goes or else I made this all up. But do not let me digress, the Security Council with its veto power members just does not help much in the case of such slaughters as the one going on in Syria now. The Russians are comfortable with their energy reserves that give them plenty of leverage to play the bully. The Chinese have bigger fish to fry than the suffering of Syrians and are preoccupied with claiming a few minuscule but strategically located islands is the Pacific, and of course the US is in election fever. Frankly, nobody cares beyond their own little domestic concerns and everybody is free riding. That the free ride is going to end up in hell, nobody really cares to think about.

Do not take my words to be the source of all wisdom, here is another take on this very issue by people who might know a lot better than I do. Back to Earth : Nature : Nature Publishing Group: “In 1992, Nature warned against thinking that a single summit could eradicate poverty and redistribute wealth while setting specific limits on greenhouse gases. The expectations for Rio+20 are so low that almost any agreement or affirmation would qualify as a success. The fact is that politicians know what needs to be done, and countries committed to doing it 20 years ago; what is missing is political leadership and solutions that are cheap, scalable and politically viable. For the second time, the world has a chance to craft a workable agenda, but the elusive key to success lies in finding a way to overturn the widespread reluctance to make the necessary investments in time, money and intellect to get the job done.” (Via. Nature)

Why am I so pessimistic?

Taking action is easy. In fact the world lives in an abundance of action. The only problem is that all those actions are not effective or properly reflected. Taking effective action requires that you know what effect you want to create. Here lies the problem. It is almost impossible to figure out ex ante what the consequences of action (policies, laws, rules) are going to be. This is one element of my thesis, and I will be expanding on this later. 

Yes, if you do not understand, that means that you have started to think. 

(Via. Needless conflict : Nature : Nature Publishing Group)

It is about smart business after all.

I found it worthwhile to watch the film. It is important to realize that what is wrong in terms of food security is not the lack of food on a global scale, rather the fact that we do not manage to distribute it to those in need. Still the problem is not just distribution, it is also one of capacity building and the development of sustainable agricultural practices. It is indeed mind boggling that these days there are children on our planet dying of starvation. Beyond my comprehension is the fact that every five seconds a child dies from hunger-related diseases and elsewhere on the same planet overweight and obesity are killing more people than underweight. The access to food, in part, just reflects wealth, however that is not the whole story. 

The film is a bit skewed as it presents wrong facts without correction. It is a documentary, but if falls short in that it does not present a balanced perspective of the issues. I found it troublesome that obvious misinformation in the form of statements made by dignitaries is not corrected. One can understand why. One a fisheries ministry blames the WTO for his own country’s practice of allowing over-fishing in its territorial waters, the good man is washing his hands of all responsibility and placing the blame on the front door of Pascal Lamy. This is wrong, plain wrong. The WTO agreements do not give anybody a free pass to go fish on the waters of another nation. Those interested in what the WTO regulates in terms of fisheries should at least know that besides tariffs, it regulates sanitary measures and technical standards. Unfortunately the film does not comment on this fact, and the viewer unfamiliar with WTO agreements can easily be mislead. What this points to is one part of the problem where the political leadership in least developing countries is more often than not interested in filling their pockets (say by granting fishing rights to foreign enterprises) than to actually take policy actions that will develop the social and economic well being of their constituency. 

However, let’s not blame only the political leaders of the starving south for catering to their own personal egocentric agendas. Finally the wisdom is painfully sinking in that food aid is just not very helpful. The film does demonstrate this point rather well. This is the point at which I am back into being a child and never quite understanding what colonization and the missions in Africa were all about, and I have to fast forward my own understanding of the situation rather quickly. There are times, like in the case of natural disasters or industrial accidents when a population is left without the means to feed itself, and then food aid is needed, and it is needed fast. But we are not talking here about disaster relief, we are talking here about the need for those with the least means to be able to get a minimum of sustenance without having to rely on food donations from industrialized that, among other ills, make sure that all aid money stays within the same industrialized nations that donate it. If development aid does not invest into capacity building and sustainable (agricultural) development, all it does is create a clientele system within industrialized donor nations that ensures that the only sustainable part of the system has to do with capital flow within those same rich donor nations while the starting south receives consumables. 

There is more than enough food for all, why can we not make it that all have adequate access to it?

Visualize the past and imagine the future.

China: Philosophers sparked good science : Nature : Nature Publishing Group: “Peng Gong misrepresents the thoughts of Chinese philosophers Confucius and Zhuang Zhou by suggesting that they hinder scientific advancement in modern China (Nature 481, 411; 2012).

Confucius encouraged curiosity and practice in teaching and learning. His thoughts are universal and timeless, and have influenced many other Asian countries — including Japan, where sound science thrives.

Zhuang advocated harmony so that we could fulfil our essential connection with nature. This view is pertinent in today’s China, where the environment and human health are being damaged by explosive and unbalanced development.

Moreover, Confucius, Zhuang and other ancient Chinese philosophers made significant advances in science, technology, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and architecture, with inventions such as paper and the compass having a large impact on civilization.”

(emphasis added)

Dannie Jost: The times ahead will surprise us | Third Wave GmbH: “I should have been an astronomer, I like to think in terms of light years and orders of magnitude. In 3-5 years not much happens, just fluctuations. Still, punditry is something that everyone ought to engage with at least once in a lifetime. It was about time that I give it a try.

What are the most interesting big trends and drivers that will shape the next 3-5 years, how might they manifest, and what are the main implications?

For the next 3-5 year the big trends and drivers that will shape our existence will be the shrinking of the economy, the development of a new understanding of what sustainability is, the discovery that governance systems are failing, and the increased frequency of extreme weather events. The main implications will be a tendency to concentrate on those values, attitudes, and resources that make a difference in the quality of one’s life. There will be a mixture of the intensity of loneliness, and an increase in the value of ‘clan values’.

This does not mean that there will be no conflicts. It may even be that the conflicts between social classes – the haves and have nots – will intensify within and across national sovereignty borders. I have a bad feeling that democracy and liberalism are eroding and that human rights and obligations are good candidates for a collaborative reengineering project. I know that capitalism is broken, but thank Charles Schwab for voicing it out loud.

Imagine that the world’s governments instead of restructuring their administrations, reducing costs, getting a grip on corruption, concentrating on improving the social cohesion and infrastructure, instead of all of that, put the squeeze on the taxpayers that are already over taxed (aka as ‘the poor’) and leave the few wealthy living in overabundance and tax free. Somehow that is not a recipe for peace. Strangely enough this is the trend as we watch the world deal the so-called financial and euro crisis. I do not like the developments one bit.

The question that remains for me is whether I will remain a complaining observer, and if there will be any action that I will take to interfere with these developments.

How could the world be made more desirable over the next 3-5 years? In other words, which problems would you like your peers to tackle over the next few years, or which parameters to change?

I would like to see my peers tackle financial regulation, social equity, and produce technology that liberates instead of technology that enslaves. A lot of technology today enslaves, it does not liberate. Come to think of it, the same can be said of regulations and laws that are there to guarantee our freedoms but that over time have been highjacked in the service of few and alienate the masses. The results are not pretty. I exaggerate. Still, sometimes it looks like one large group gets the obligations, and a small minority get the rights. That is not the idea. I do not like that bit either.

Which parameters should change is not the question I would ask, it implies a deterministic approach to a deterministic world. I would invite exploration and I would include discipline in the exploration. The exploration will aid in finding the emerging temporary parameters that can be used to shape the world and create the society that we want. Techno-determinism is not the way to go. Determinism is just not the way that the Universe is built, the Universe is evolving and we are interacting with it albeit on a small scale in the grand scale of things, and in a big way in the small scope of our planet.

All our information generating capabilities only reveal the limits of our knowledge and the confines of our cognitive abilities. We are not doomed, but the roller coaster ride of evolution has barely began.

I would like to see some of my own ideas gain traction, but the ink is not even dry on some of those plans. Still, the plans are quite concrete. I am playing and exploring the ideas of monopolies and competition and their relationship to innovation and public goods. For example, the pharmaceutical industry operates with a business model derived from hard core capitalism and that model is fairly kaputt.

Thanks for the questions. These are good questions. The more I try to answer them, the more evident it is to me that I do not have a clue. The times ahead will surprise us. I will continue to search for the perfect hot chocolate mix. Hopes I have for a smart phone that is a wifi fox and has no more than ten apps. For dishes and laundry, I will rely on house help and electric appliances.”

(Via the Third Wave blog.)

Loved the questions. All the thanks go to Third Wave.

Patents have a role in technology, the question is how to shape that role in congruence with society’s evolution and understanding of itself.

Everything is a Remix Part 4 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo. via Johannes Kleske

For the connection to the work being done at the NCCR Trade Regulation see the activities in the work package Innovation and Creativity.