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Peace, justice, opportunity, and a clean environment for all Civilization's best defensive measures against war, terrorism, technological stagnation, and economic ruin Sponsor this page This page last updated on or about 1-26-09

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Ever wished for something different to shake up your life? Jerry Staute did, and look what happened to him.

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A. Make peace, justice, opportunity, and a clean environment for all the foundation of each and every present and future international agreement.

Even worse, besides making us sick or deformed, such pollution also makes us ever dumber. So if we don't get a handle on it soon, it'll literally be too late.

Some people might say the best way to reduce risk is to reduce world population growth-- maybe even reverse it. Maybe even commit genocide on groups we don't particularly like. Keep in mind a sufficiently strong reversal would result in the extinction of the entire human race. Reversals considerably weaker than extinction-provoking events could plunge the world into long-lived economic depressions and perhaps even a new Dark Ages, as our current economic trends and practices depend heavily on growing markets and an accelerating pace of innovation. If lots of folks suddenly died on us, we could lose many new ideas critical to sustaining future innovation, and the ever improving economies of scale which have undergirded much of our progress in the industrial age would suddenly be jerked out from under us. The survivors likely would not be happy campers in such an instance.

It's going to take us a while to learn how to prosper with a stable or even shrinking population. And we might get such shrinkage even with current reproductive trends, over just another generation or two. Hopefully the 30-80 years we have until then will be enough time for us to adapt.

So don't worry population bomb defusers-- your dream seems to be coming true already. Just hope it doesn't happen faster than we can adapt to it.

As for those who'd like to wipe out whole strains of the human race to 'solve' various problems, they can relax-- because nature does that routinely. Sometimes in an instant.

Indeed, we may soon have to scramble to prevent the entire race from being eliminated, by way of a huge asteroid or comet collision, super-volcanic eruption, nuclear war, disease epidemics, plain old poisoning from pollution, or starvation due to many factors. For details of these and other ongoing and growing threats to us all, refer to the status quo of the world, circa 2000, as well as the timeline in general.

Economics actually became a global issue long before pollution. Remember the Great Depression? It stemmed at least partly from artificial international trade frictions of the time. Even the richest nations can be plunged into misery if we get the economics wrong. And the best deals will be those where as many nations as possible are satisfied with the current arrangements. Rich nations bullying poor nations may have worked pretty well in past history, but doing it today is like a farmer eating the seeds he needs for next season's crops. The richer nations need the poorer nations to mature and develop into new and bigger markets and customers. And the poorer nations need certain kinds of guidance and support from the richer nations to ramp themselves up. Sure, both have their own self-interests driving them, and it wouldn't be wise to tilt the balance too far towards either one on many matters. But healthy compromises between both on many issues have proven mutually beneficial in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.

Remember I mentioned before how our present global economy depends heavily on growing markets? And how growing markets depend a lot on growing populations? Well, another possible growth avenue for markets is scale-- which I somewhat allude to in the text above about our need to help the more backward nations develop and mature economically. But there's another essential nugget here. Namely, the middle-class. The size and education of the middle-class population worldwide really represents the heart of economic growth potential, for everyone. Allow the real growth of the middle-class population to level off, or even dip into negative numbers, and the world economy will take a terrible hit-- at least the way things are set up now.

In my opinion far too few economists, business folks, and politicians consider this issue at all in their various deliberations about growth strategies and policies. But the way we've set up the global economy in the last couple centuries, growth-- both in quantity and quality-- of the global middle-class is essential to economic stability and progress for everyone. For a long while the developed nations themselves had so much room to grow in this manner internally that it didn't much matter about the rest of the world. But those days are drawing to a close. Even we in the developed nations are increasingly dependent upon the growth of the middle-class in developing nations to fuel our own progress towards eliminating poverty and improving living standards for all within our borders. But through neglect, prejudice, and ignorance we may be losing that particular contest.

Note that the change in the status of the middle-class in developing nations may now (or will soon) wield more clout in our own (developed) economic indicators than anything we can easily or quickly change about our own economies. So we ignore or mistreat such struggling nations at our own peril.

It could well be that if and when things take a turn for the decidedly worse for the middle-classes of the developing world, everyone will plunge into deep recession (or even a global depression).

So you might say the current estimates of the present status and future economic potential of all the developed nations (including America) are pretty much just the thin skin of a vast speculative bubble which could burst at any time, and in dramatic fashion.

Note that taking radical actions to reform our own governments and institutions to increase the growth in quantity and quality of our own middle-class could theoretically counteract a significant downturn in the growth of middle-classes elsewhere. But such reforms appear unlikely for many developed nations in the near term. Instead, we seem to be focusing on bettering the lot of the richest 1% or so of our populations at the expense of our middle and lower classes, for some bizarre reason (so I suppose the answer to the question 'what to give someone who has everything' is simply...more).

Unfortunately, many developing nations take their cue from our own policies, and so are presently undercutting the growth of their middle-classes in favor of their richest 1% or so as well. And of course, non-democratic states worldwide have pretty much always done things this way, and will continue on that course. All this likely doesn't bode well for future economic progress.

But maybe technological advancements and entrepreneurship will save us? Alas, the developed nations circa 2002 are strengthening, expanding, and extending big business monopolies by both industrial category and in terms of intellectual property across-the-board, in ways which seem sure to greatly reduce future business competition, and so both technological advancement and entrepreneurial opportunity as well. And again, many of the developing nations are following our lead, thereby amplifying the ultimate potential consequences of our own mistakes, worldwide.

To see more on this issue please refer to Intellectual property reform in the 21st century.

Are education and human rights necessarily global issues today? Sure! The more educated folks worldwide are, the more and stronger democracies we'll have, the more innovation and healthy economic competition, lower prices for goods and services, higher living standards, fewer wars, less terrorism, etc., etc., etc. You name the benefit you want, and it's likely improvements in global education and human rights will give it to us.

"...human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe..."

-- H.G. Wells, 1,920 AD

So how does global justice figure into the equation? Actually, this one may be more potent than several of the items above it on the list, combined. For often even the uneducated can see and understand justice when it's served. And that could defuse huge numbers of conflicts around the globe, perhaps saving the entire race from extinction at some point. Remember, it doesn't take a degree to set a building afire, shoot someone, break open a test tube, or push a button. But the end of the whole world could begin with such a simple action.

Perhaps the biggest changes necessary to accomplish true justice would be enforcing greater accountability and real punishments for the wrong doers among our elite.

"Criminal prosecutions are highly unusual for corporate criminals, and convictions carrying jail time are even more rare."

What's one result of people feeling the authorities are being unjust in how they mete out punishment? Pretty much a perception that those authorities are rejecting the values those people hold most dear. In effect, rejecting the people themselves.

What happens to those who feel such a powerful sense of rejection? Maybe a plunge in rational thinking, and a greater tendency towards violence and terrorism. A sense of rejection looks to severely reduce intelligence quotients.

Some folks might take this to mean the potential intelligence and expertise available within terrorist organizations will thus be limited in some absolute way, thereby restraining the possible damage they can do to everyone else. In some ways this may well be true. But as the natural physical law of entropy prods all things to collapse into chaos and anarchy over time, and often with only the slightest encouragement from external forces, the power of even the dumbest, poorest, and most clumsy of terrorists will at least on occasion be multiplied by many magnitudes over their innate abilities and ambitions. Note that civilization frequently experiences great and stunning disasters even in matters where everyone involved appears to be working together in a benevolent fashion to avoid them. Entropy is our ultimate enemy-- not our fellow human beings. And encouraging growth in the numbers of human beings seeking to align themselves with such forces only opens up a multitude of new opportunities for cosmic entropy to disrupt our lives and mangle our society, no matter how limited the intelligence or aims of any malevolent people involved in such acts may be.

True justice requires government and business transparency, well-protected whistleblowers, and a multitude of independent and reliable news sources

Note that the absolute measure of real justice within any society will be directly proportional to the level of true transparency of all institutions in that society, and accuracy and comprehensiveness of publically available records for same. It will also be dependent upon the wide availability to the public of raw, unfiltered/uncensored/unslanted news and information stemming from real world events, via a multitude of independent, reliable sources.

A non-informed (or ill-informed) public is much the same as a non-educated public, so far as matters vital to freedom and democracy are concerned.

In light of the above, it is critically important that powerful protections exist to keep mainstream news media free from and independent of government intervention, as well as properly insulated from the possibilities of monopolies or oligopolies of any sort gaining dominance (or undue influence) over the industry as a whole from the business side.

Another essential element to all this is high profile and real encouragement, protection, and rewards for 'whistle-blowers' in both business and government affairs, to aid in the discovery and remedy of mistakes, fraud, theft, corruption, deception, and other ills at all levels of operations, as well as the deterrance of same, merely by the existence and determined enforcement of such policies by all entities of significant size. Whistle-blowers rank among the best champions and defenders of civilization itself, and should be treated accordingly.

Just one of the threats to society to which bold whistle-blowers may be a solution is excessive secrecy. However, excess secrecy is such an enormous threat to the well-being of civilization, and often so difficult to uncover or correct, and so eagerly sought out and utilized by individuals and organizations of ill will, more than strong whistle-blower protections alone will usually be required to root it out and exterminate it.

Bringing the real truth to light (and purging business and government of excess or dangerous levels of secrecy)

One way we could boost real accountability and justice in the world is force everyone in positions of power (both business and government) to be as honest as possible in their words and actions. Impossible, you say? It's not. Indeed, it gets ever more technologically feasible each passing day. For example, there'd be nothing simpler than setting up an overlapping, saturated surveillance of our chief executives so that their every word and action relating to their office could be recorded for posterity and after-the-fact analysis.

Keep in mind the world would be helped immeasurably more by closely monitoring the actions or detecting the lies of the rich and powerful than doing the same with regard to small-time crooks and criminals. Even serial killers of hundreds of people (or terrorist killers of thousands) can adversely impact society far less than someone like the head of a major corporation or major nation-state can, at this stage in our techological development. The more powerful and influential the person in question, the more urgent the need to insure their honesty and motivations in the position.

If the first place you use this technology is on people like common thieves and murderers, you're starting at the wrong (and least effective) end of things. If the first place you start is with wholesale surveillance and lie detection measures put into place over apparently innocent citizens or employees en masse, then it would seem you're pursuing a downright sinister course-- as the most effective thing that might accomplish is stopping an innocent whistleblower from revealing wrong doing on the part of the powerful. Is this what the USA and other developed nations are in process of doing as of 2002, with legislation like the U.S.A. Patriot Act? If so, perhaps more people should be re-reading George Orwell's 1984 [shop for this]. Or Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky [shop for this]. Before it's too late.

Overlapping and saturated surveillance of our leaders and other elite would be the simplest, cheapest, and easiest way to ascertain honesty and integrity in the group. But if even more accuracy and granularity was desired in the process, development of more advanced lie detection systems is also possible.

Here's a quick index to a multitude of different techniques which might be combined to create a superbly powerful lie detection system:

Perform automated computer translation of spoken or written words into a special language designed for uncovering lies. Then have the original speaker or writer respond to the suspect points discovered via the translation-- and repeat the translation and follow up questioning cycle-- until all the possible deceptions have disappeared, or it becomes obvious the truth is missing-in-action. Does such a language exist? Yes.

Proper analysis of brain scans from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can reveal a person's dishonesty.

Professional analysis of facial expressions and body language and movements can help the detection of lies. Inconsistencies in dialogue content also help give away liars.

Certain victims of a particular kind of brain damage become much better at detecting liars than uninjured people, after they've had at least a year to adjust to their new mental capabilities. Their affliction is called aphasia.

There exists software today capable of analyzing facial expressions for insincerity.

Thermal imaging cameras appear capable of detecting some lies from changes in blood circulation around the eyes.

The old conventional lie detection apparatus (polygraph) may be used to gather certain types of information, but is not itself necessarily an infallible detection device.

Another technology deemed roughly equivalent to the polygraph in accuracy (but which uses a somewhat different method to get its results) is voice stress analysis.

Note that the enormous cost and effort that would be required to integrate all the above techniques and possibly others into a single, extremely accurate lie detection system at any time in the near future could make it impractical and wasteful to use such a system on anyone in society but the very highest ranking and most influential shapers of business and government.

Perhaps just as important (if not more so) as keeping our business and government leaders honest, is minimizing the corrosive effects of secrecy in general upon democracy and capitalism worldwide.

Secrecy is typically used to shield corruption, conspiracy, unwarranted aggression, and other criminal activities, both in business and government. Used to minimize or destroy accountability. To hide theft of various types. To facilitate coercion. To increase fear and/or uncertainty in a given population or faction. To mislead others in various matters. To manipulate. To slow or impede innovation/competition from certain quarters or within selected industries. Though some might argue there are some secrets legitimately worth keeping for reasons of national security, defense, healthy business competition, or human welfare, all too often those words are called upon in cases where the real truth is closer to the more insidious purposes listed before. And often there's no independent checks and balances placed on those making the decisions regarding secrecy. Thus, it appears that once anyone is given the power to classify things as secret, they tend to go overboard at best (withholding too much information from others), and use it for their own (or allies') benefit at the unethical or criminal expense of others, at worst.

In a great many cases, secrecy and censorship may be interchangeable in terms of their results. Even intellectual property protections, if too strong, can present similar problems for a society.

Ergo, in almost all cases it appears considerable constraints should be in place and rigorously enforced on what information can be made secret or withheld from the public. Plus extraordinary care be used in appointing anyone to a position of power regarding where and when the dangerous cloak of secrecy may be applied. And lastly, similar extraordinary care should be used to appoint others to act as a fully independent system of checks and balances on those people selected to place information under lock and key, and each and every decision they make in that role.

Ubiquitous or near-ubiquitous surveillance in a society offers quite a few potential benefits and advantages, as well as some extreme dangers. One-way surveillance of the public en mass is almost certainly the worst and most civilization-threatening way to implement such a system. Two-way surveillance-- with the larger numbers of the public having at least as much monitoring power over the watchers as their watchers do over them-- looks to be the best and least corruptible method to utilize.

Impartial automated systems should comprise the main body of monitors, programmed to tolerate the widest possible variety of human speech, movement, appearances, actions, and interaction which seem consistent with minimal health or physical dangers to themselves or others. Where observed actions appear to go beyond what's acceptable, the machines can take remedial action, often without alerting human observation personnel or even those under its watch. For instance, if the system notices someone driving a bit too fast for the present circumstances on a given highway, it can remotely slow their vehicle to optimal velocity (this scenario will likely be feasible for many urban automobiles a few decades from now).

In other cases, perhaps like a cigarrette smoker lighting up in a room filled with pregnant women, the surveillance system might verbally address the smoker over a public address system in the vicinity (or call them on their cell phone) or alert nearby personnel to advise the smoker to move to a location less harmful to others.

Wherever an urgent and immediate need for assistance is plainly obvious, such as multiple vehicles being involved in a violent collision, there too the machines could automatically and immediately dispatch medical and other assistance without the intervention or related delays of getting real human beings involved in the decision.

Of course, there'll always be a fraction of cases where a human judgment call as to the level of danger or urgency in an observed situation is required, before a decision can be made to ignore the event, or respond in some way. In those cases the automated systems would refer the case to human personnel for their hopefully greater understanding of a given event's implications or possible consequences.

The risk of madness at the top

I previously excluded mental illness among the general population as an element to be addressed in this document. But there is one facet of mental illness which should definitely be included here: that possibility among powerful government, military, and business leaders worldwide. Mental illness in this group could have catastrophic results for the world as a whole-- and is much more likely to adversely affect all our destinies than similar illness in less influential people, such as common citizens.

Thus, it would seem only prudent that all our top leaders in both business and government be subject to regular, scientifically credible, and independent mental evaluations, and the results made available in timely fashion to the public. Indeed, it was recently recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that all adults be tested for one particular element of mental illness on a regular basis-- depression.

You say you don't believe the items above are as important as I say they are to our own peace, security, and well being? Well, don't take my word for it. Ask all the dead civilizations spread out in our galaxy if such matters should be on our list of priorities. What civilizations, you ask? That's the point. The latest scientific discoveries strongly suggest that life is pretty much ubiquitous throughout the universe. Therefore it follows that highly developed life (like us) has probably sprung up repeatedly in many places over the past several billion years. But where is it? The skies are eerily silent. So silent our own brightest scientists are increasingly worried that something seems to always snuff out civilizations that reach our present stage of development.

From everything we know today, it appears the cause of the average civilization's demise would likely stem from a catastrophic failure in achieving one or more of the goals listed within 'Civlization's Best Defenses'.

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