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Showing posts from February, 2020

UNESCO on Race, Richard Dawkins and Eugenics

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"The   prea mble  of  Unesco’s  Constitution,  adopted  in  1945,  specifically  named  racism  as  one  of  the  social  evils  which  the  new  Or ganization  was  called  upon  to  combat.  Moreover,  the  Constitution  declares  that  ”  the  great  and  terrible  war  which  has  now  ended  was  a  war  made  possible  by  the  denial  of  the  democratic  principles  of  the  dignity,  equality  and  mutual  respect  of  men,  and  by  the  propagation,  in  their  place,  through  ignorance  and  prejudice,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  inequality  of  men  and  races". unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000128291 I t seems that Richard Dawkins still maintains that "Eugenics" works: evolutionnews.org/2020/02/if-human-eugenics-wouldnt-work-human-evolution-has-a-big-problem/ I miss Dawkins explanation as to "of course", as did many others. Without an explanation, wishes, exhortations and personal opinions mean nothing. There is no "of

Nine Tipping Points - The Three Poisons

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 The time to take any solace whatsoever from small snippets of news like this is long, long gone:  www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-nine-tipping-points-that-could-be-triggered-by-climate-change Explainer: Nine ‘tipping points’ that could be triggered by climate change | Carbon Brief Tipping towers. A glance at the news media on any given week will likely highlight all sorts of climate change impacts. From declining Arctic sea ice and record-breaking heatwaves to melting glaciers and worsening droughts, the increase in global average temperature is being felt around the world.. Broadly, these impacts reflect gradual changes caused by a climate that is steadily warming. www.carbonbrief.org Emissions have been pretty much flat for 7 years now. Not enough is being done. To achieve below even the 2 degree rise target there will now need to be Carbon Dioxide extraction for decades and even with that happening, to whatever degree, there will be Sea Level Rises as predicted and al

Antidemocracy and Inverted Totalitarianism

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“ Antidemocracy, executive predominance, and elite rule are basic elements of inverted totalitarianism. Antidemocracy does not take the form of overt attacks upon the idea of government by the people. Instead, politically it means encouraging what I have earlier dubbed “civic demobilization,” conditioning an electorate to being aroused for a brief spell, controlling its attention span, and then encouraging distraction or apathy. The intense pace of work and the extended working day, combined with job insecurity, is a formula for political demobilization, for privatizing the citizenry. It works indirectly. Citizens are encouraged to distrust their government and politicians; to concentrate upon their own interests; to begrudge their taxes; and to exchange active involvement for symbolic gratifications of patriotism, collective self-righteousness, and military prowess. Above all, depoliticization is promoted through society’s being enveloped in an atmosphere of collective fear and of

The Trilateral Commission

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Forget the Davos jamboree, maybe even the G7, G20 meetings? I wonder how many have actually heard of The Trilateral Commission . It is no "Deep State" NGO in the convoluted Conspiracy Theorist sense, simply a nice friendly 325 member "Club" drawn mainly from very senior business levels, the Euro-banking higher echelons, the better classes of think tank/research institutions,  media, international business, finance, lobbying and government,   IMF, World Bank types, some of the better academics, " to foster substantive political and economic dialogue across the world". They just like to meet up every couple of years for lunch. Perfectly harmless. A n ewly published 2020 list  includes Michael Bloomberg, Ian Bremmer, Paul Volcker, Robert Zoellick, Michael Chertoff, Erich Schmidt, Laurence Fink and a host of other "movers & shakers". T here is a Wallenberg, Jean-Claude Trichet and of course the ubiquitous Carl Bildt.  David Petraeus and Fiona Hi