Polymath enLight
MONEY
MONEY
MONEY
Loving Distribution
Money – as with all else in human living – has been tainted by selfishness and grabbed for selfish individual or national ends.
Just as money has been in the past the instrument of men's selfishness, now it must be the instrument of their goodwill.
The inevitable trends of evolutionary process are calling forth individuals of financial stature to regard money as a responsibility to be dispensed wisely for the service of others.
Divergent paths are inherently devolutionary.
The custodians of money will then shoulder their responsibility without fear and with due understanding. At present, they hold on to it through fear of the future and distrust of each other.
The problems of barter and exchange, the significance and use of money, the production of right attitudes towards material living, and the entire process of right distribution of the world's resources are among the many problems waiting to be solved by advances in economic understanding and ideas.
As money has in the past ministered to personal and family need, so in the future it must minister to group and world need.
Today, in the midst of this devastated, chaotic and unhappy world, mankind has a fresh opportunity to reject selfish materialistic living and to begin to tread the Lighted Way.
SISTERHOOD
BROTHERHOOD
SISTERHOOD
Human Rights
What the world has largely "agreed" upon is summarized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, presented by the United Nations in Paris on December 10, 1948.
Nearly 77 years later, the question still remains:
Why do we still struggle to fully embrace and enforce human rights?
We are human... and these are our rights.
How much longer will we let our attachment to suffering and self-destruction shape our lives and decisions?
The first article of the Declaration states as follows:
Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Spirit of brotherhood? Spirit of Brotherhood, indeed.
Read the full list of Human Rights here.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Digital Sovereignty
So, how do we build a digital infrastructure that offers more digital sovereignty?
We need a systematized approach and a digital infrastructure that is itself secure and trustworthy, designed to protect us and ensure resilience in the face of changes and malevolence.
At the present moment, our sovereignty is being undermined and compromised in various ways. Here are a few examples of how this is happening:
FACIAL EMOTIONAL RECOGNITION
Privacy and transparency issues arise concerning both the collection and the further processing of personal data.
FER technology can be used to create profiles of people in a number of situations: derive one’s acceptance of a proposed idea, product, an advertisement, etc.
The risk lies in the fact that the data subject may not be aware of this type of targeting and further implications can occur by erroneous profiling or inferences solely based on the association with a certain group of people experiencing the same emotions.
In addition, the knowledge of the individuals’ emotions can make it easier to manipulate them. For instance, the knowledge of emotions revealing a vulnerable emotional state, can be used to mentally force people to perform actions they would not do otherwise.
Last but not least, FER can influence behavioural changes in case a person is aware of the exposure to this technology (known as Reactivity in psychology).
Individuals may alter their habits or avoid specific areas where the technology is applied in an attempt to self-sensor and protect themselves.
ACOUSTIC TRACKING
Recently, ultrasonic cross-device tracking (uXDT) has emerged, based on embedding tracking identifiers into ultrasonic sounds and detecting them with a microphone on a user’s smartphone.
Adversaries today can embed tracking identifiers into ultrasonic sound and covertly transmit them between devices without users realizing that this is happening.
To prevent such emerging privacy risks, mobile applications now require a request for an explicit user permission, at run-time, to get access to a device’s microphone.
However, current defenses are not enough.
There is a novel approach to acoustic cross-device tracking, which does not require microphone access, but instead exploits the susceptibility of MEMS gyroscopes to acoustic vibrations at specific (ultrasonic) frequencies.
Currently, no permissions are needed to access the gyroscope’s data, and the gyroscope can be accessed from apps or even from a web browser.
In this manner, gyroscopes in modern smartphones and smartwatches can be used as zero-permission receivers of ultrasonic signals, making cross-device tracking completely unnoticeable to users.
Countermeasures would require hardware or software changes, and may have performance or production cost drawbacks.
Therefore, the presented attack remains completely feasible at present and can cause significant privacy threat to end users.
Nature in the Balance Sheet
Status Quo: GROWING POOR
Opportunity: NATURE CAPITAL AS A SOURCE OF SOCIETAL WEALTH
Solution: A VEHICLE FOR INVESTMENTS IN NATURE
To distinguish Nature Equity from other current methods of attributing monetary value to land, it's important to understand two conventional practices:
- The first method values land based on its surface area – essentially, the
real estate value measured in square meters or hectares.
- The second method assesses value based on the natural capital that can be converted into tradable products like soft commodities, timber, or minerals (“provisioning ecosystem services”).
The Nature Equity contract establishes a new asset class, immutably linked to a Natural Capital Account (NCA).
This account records the stock of biodiversity, carbon, soil, or water for a specific plot of land. With an NCA as collateral, payments for nature preservation or maintenance can be recognized as an immaterial asset on the buyer’s balance sheet. Nature Equity contracts facilitate an equitable exchange of nature-based contracts between land stewards and businesses.
Nature Equity can serve as the constitutional contract for nature-backed assets, then nature-backed securities and – eventually – nature-backed currencies.
Nature Equity focuses on non-extractive natural capital.
It recognizes the inherent value of ecosystems that contribute to the land's overall health and sustainability, not just the extractable resources.
TERRA GAIA TERRA
TERRA GAIA TERRA
GAIA TERRA GAIA
Love Letter to the Earth
You were born from the dust of distant supernovas and ancient stars. Your manifestation is but a continuation and when you cease to exist in this current form you too will continue in another. Your true nature is the ultimate dimension of reality—the nature of no-coming and no-going, no-birth and no-death. This is also our true nature. If we’re able to touch this we can experience the peace and freedom of non-fear.
You are the mother of all beings. I call you by the human name Mother and yet I know your mothering nature is more vast and ancient than humankind. We are just one young species of your many children. All the millions of other species who live—or have lived—on Earth are also your children. You aren’t a person, but I know you are not less than a person either. You are a living breathing being in the form of a planet.
It took you a billion years to begin to manifest the first living beings. Complex molecules, perhaps brought to you from outer space, started to come together in self-replicating structures, slowly becoming more and more like living cells. Light particles from distant stars, millions of light years away, came to visit and stay a while. Small cells gradually became larger cells; unicellular organisms evolved into multicellular organisms.
Life developed from deep within the oceans, multiplying and prospering, steadily improving the atmosphere. Slowly, the ozone layer could form, preventing harmful radiation from reaching your surface, and allowing life on land to prosper. It was only then, as the miracle of photosynthesis unfurled, that you began to wear the exquisite green mantle you do today.
You have an immense capacity to embrace, handle, and transform everything that is cast at you, whether it be great asteroids, refuse and filth, poisonous fumes, or radioactive waste. Time helps you to do this, and your history has shown that you always succeed, even if it takes millions of years. You were able to reestablish equilibrium after the devastating collision that created the moon and have endured at least five mass extinctions, reviving yourself every time. You have an extraordinary capacity to renew, transform, and heal yourself—and also us, your children.
Dear Mother, there have been times when we suffered greatly as a result of natural disasters. We know that whenever we suffer, you suffer through us. The floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis aren’t punishments or manifestations of your anger, but are phenomena that must occur on occasion, so that balance can be restored. The same is true of a shooting star. For balance in nature to be achieved, at times some species have to endure loss.
In those moments, we have turned to you, dear Mother, and asked whether or not we could count on you, on your stability and compassion. You didn’t answer us right away. Then, beholding us with great compassion, you replied, “Yes, of course, you can count on your Mother. I will always be there for you.” But then you said,
“Dear children, you must ask yourselves, can your Mother Earth count on you?”
___
If your answer is yes, you can find solutions to make a difference at Drawdown Solutions, and check if your bank supports sustainable practices at Bank.Green.