Slowness and Mindfulness 2

Simple and sublime truths or keys to existence are rooted in most mundane daily acts of yesteryear. This morning saw one little girl going to school with her Grandpa. As the came out of their building they both did a surya namaskar (greeting the Sun).

Man is fast moving away fast from his umbilical ties with Mother Earth.

So called progresses in science, technology, aerospace, healthcare, etc are nothing but a double-edged sword: which no doubt gives us all the are best quality of life through longer healthier life, hi tech living, better food. But all this comes at a heavy cost in terms carbon emissions, climate change which is intensifying and compounding each year and at the cost of the balanced Eco system which coexisted for thousands of years. Plus the so called progresses are enjoyed by a elite class of privileged people who have the means.

Today man with his sophisticated weapons of doom and love for live sport wields infinite powers on the animal kingdom. Most of them are perishing and becoming extinct which does not bore well for the balanced future of the planet.

Man wages bitter wars against his fellow less privileged beings for the control of scarce and finite natural resources. The objective is to set up a super race which will become most powerful, richest, fastest, biggest, etc till hubris catches up.

Indeed it's a Faustian dilemma in which man will eventually loose his precious soul and peace. Again the longer lasting benefits of life from slowness and mindfulness are relegated to the background since they not so hip and exciting.

Slowness and Mindfulness - I

Today's world is characterised a frenetic activity all round in search of so called parameters of excellence mainly in the corporate world. The corporate world is fixated upon forever improving their quarterly performance so that the stock market prices are showing continuously higher prices. Corporates after a while have to resort to various forms of  corporate skulduggery to keep up with the competitors. This mad quest for reaching the top by hook or by crook by bringing out the fastest, highest, best products.

But all these advances in technology and innovation have no doubt brought us the best mindblowing products like Apple, Bose, etc. then countries are racing against each other to possess the most deadly defence weapons of mass destruction.

With all this hyper completion,  the youth are gradually getting premature white hair, ulcers, blood pressure, during their thirties. Every ten years the forties become the new thirties and so on. Corporates too are leveraging to much to keep up with their peers.

All this is taking a heavy toll on the health of the corporates and the young employees.

Plus all this is also leading to huge debts by economies, corporates and individuals.

As Alice would say everything is getting curriousser and curriouser.

This all has been having irreversible changes of climate and Mother Earth. This meaningless race is hurtling us all to the Edge.

If only some sense prevails. There needs to be a drastic reversal in man's conditioned goals. There is an urgent need to embrace slowness and mindfulness as a conscious strategy to save human civilisation from a certain annihilation through accelerating climate change. It's now or never. More of the solution in the coming blogs.

Internet and Humarobs....

Cisco has projected that by 2018 internet traffic will reach 1.6 trillion GBs, a 13 fold increase in ten years. 79% of this traffic will be video. No of average devices per person will increase from 1.7 to 2.7. About 52% of humanity ie 4 bn will be on the web. During 2013-18, these will a 3x increase in usage. Tablets and smartphones will register highest increase from 5.7% to 30.3%.

Humankind will undergo profound changes in this short futueshockean telescoping of time period. Indeed an inflexion point in human history. Little toddlers have become adept at handing smart devices. Increasingly applications in the cloud will take most our decisions and there will be a radical shift in the working patterns with many job redundancies.

Most of humanity will be glued to touch screens all the time both for work and pleasure. Increasing reliance on computers. Only a few creative functions may be done by those elite intelligent giants. Robots will be taking over a preponderance of repetitive human activity with orders from the cloud.

Indeed the dehumanisation of the human race will be fairly complete. Both humans and robots will start becoming closer to each other. Finally in the age of singularity there will be a morphing of the two. 

Lightening fast stock trading in dark pools

The global stock markets have been reeling from the explosion in high frequency and lightening fast stock trading which are being conducted the the rather opaque dark pools of trading which are not under the purview of the stock exchanger of their regulator. These exotic out of sight and bound trading are are mainly played by few like Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, etc. the SEC and Finra are keen of expanding the volume, breadth and width of disclosures. As much as 36% of stock trading is being carried in these murky black holes.

Not much is known on the modalities of trading being carried out. We only wish these mysterious instruments and deals should not become weapons of massive financial destruction, which should further weaken the already fragile financial and banking systems in Europe and US.

Many large European banks are already under the lens of SEC. BNP And Credit Suisse have already been fined hefty penalties up to $ 10 bn for the former. BoFA is already slapped with a total penalty plus customer payments of about $ 18 bn.

All the above comes in the wake of a prolonged period of uneasy calm on the financial markets. The VIX, which is a measure of market volatility, has been stagnating at unusually low levels. This is compounded by extremely low bond rates since 2008 in US as evinced by the Feds Funds Rate Targets between 0 and 0.25%.  Europe is buffeted by below 0% real interest rates and strong deflationary conditions in about half of the nations. Japan is desperately trying to recover from low investment by reducing corporate tax rates.

The global financial markets are indeed precariously placed.  China and some of the other emerging markets like India and Indonesia seem to be the only economies which might try to offset the gloom and doom of the global financial markets

Digital age and Singularity....

Today electronic surveillance cameras are obsequiously placed everywhere. Recording all our activities. On top of that millions of smart phones are capturing our images almost round the clock being artified by Instagram. All this too is being stored in the cavernous bowels of the Cloud which like Big Brother is watching every move of us a la Truman Show style.

All our calls are being recorded, every email, message and social network post is being saved for posterity so that it can be analysed anytime. Our daily movements are being tracked from the mobiles and car gps systems. Google knows more about us, our preferences, searches, chats, friends, predilections, hobbies, etc than even ourselves. With their mega algorhytmic  analytic tools, Google mows us more intimately than even our Mothers or partners.

Increasingly houses are becoming intelligent. All the consumer durables, the electric and electronic systems, computers, cars, food providers, etc will be in synch and human will not have to do menial tasks like buying vegetables, toiletry, groceries, etc. drones will deliver the automated orders. Seamless payments will be made from the bank accounts.

All this presages the Age of Singularity. As Kurzweil as predicted that by 2029 counters will surpass human beings in intelligence. And by 2045 the age of Singularity will be ushered in where all human decisions will be taken in the Cloud. Truly the dehumanisation of the human race will have been completed.

This will be the lifestyle of the mid and upper classes. The lower classes will be largely outside the pale of this rarified digital existence. This 80% of the population will still be the tiling classes doing all the dirty physical work so that the neo digitariti can lead their vacuous lives of pleasure while the cyber network takes all their decisions.

Future Shockean Trends 1-6-14 (work in progress)

1. More single families in western world. In US and UK about 50% of households single and mothers single parent.
2. Greater dependence of humans both single and others on digital devices. Movement towards living in the cloud. And towards Kurzweil's Age of Singularity when computers and robots take over.
3. Intensifying global warming and extreme weather. In US, over the past three decades since 1983, the no of insurance claims over $ 1bn has increased from 26 to 38 and 63. Corresponding total claims have risen from $ 131 bn to $ 183bn and $ 485 bn. 
4. Most economies are living on high octane debt and deficit financing. Both cities / states and nations are facing various degrees of bankruptcies. Living on borrowed time and in the future. 
5. Healthcare will become major problem. Costs spiralling. State and insurance cannot take care. Inspite of medical advances, new diseases and obesity are making things difficult. Cancer, alziemhers, prostrate, obesity, and hearth are on rampage. 

Modi Magic

Since his resounding election success and installation as PM, Modiji has launched a series of out of the box policy changes which have taken the rather slow moving, hierarchical and bureaucratic powers that be in the capital by a virtual storm. Time bound ten point program's for PMO, and similar programs for defence etc for the first 100 days has given the slothful babus a laser show in shock and awe. All departments are busy preparing PowerPoint presentations structured with strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Today 100% FDI in defence has been mooted. Thus snooking at of one of the holy cows of the government. This has really sent shock and awe through the establishment.
Talking first with the Chinese PM was a master stroke in diplomacy. In one stone trying to get closer to the highest incremental GDP country of the world. Also it will defuse simmering border tension.
All this within the first three days of office. Surely augurs well for the country. Jai Ho.