politics/economics (17)

You thought you knew the world map? Think again :-)

Here is a map where countries are resized according to their GDP. Now all we need is a little prick to blow the whole thing up.

Found on Worldmapper, thanks to Omar.

I know, I'm guilty, I've been watching TV every night, looking for decent movies on MBC2 and One TV. ("Sucker!" I can hear you laugh). One thing I've noticed lately, before my mind goes dim, is that we're being fed American war movies every day!! What can it possibly mean?

There's a perverse relationship going on between Western media and the Arab world, and I wonder what it's causing to the Arab psyche. One of my firm beliefs is that mass media, predominantly TV, causes a feedback loop from a society onto itself directly, much like a lecture delivered to an audience, except that the media feed directly affects the whole of society, by imprinting ideas onto the individual bypassing his critical judgement. The result is society moving in the direction of the media, in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way.

Some sites try to serve me targeted ads based on my geographical location. Because I live in the Middle East, most ads I get on American sites are the two reproduced below. For non-Arabic speakers, the campaign encourages people to apply for a working visa to the US.

and

Click the attachment to see the full thing.

Globalization from the point of view of the globalizee.

Egypt is launching a nuclear energy program with the US ambassador's blessing. I don't think much more needs to be said. It's sending a chill down my spine.

I found this question at Madrid11.net, an interesting attempt at a rational inter-cultural dialog based on the values of democracy.

And it's a good question! With mineral water being forbidden as carry-on, it is urgent that we go beyond knee-jerk reactions towards real cures for our problems. Looking for root causes is a good start.

So what would I say the root causes of terrorism are?

Let's start with the obvious: human behaviour is guided by ideas that are implanted in one's brain and that seem to make sense. The less self-aware a person is, the more he will be prone to accept ideas without question. So young, poor, badly-educated people living in dire conditions will be more ready to act as terrorists than others.

From a phone conversation with Ammar.

For nodes in a network to collaborate successfully, it helps that there be a mutual need between them. The need can be for resources, skills, experience, or reach into the other node's subnetwork. Note how a "need" that is expressed to the Other implies self-awareness, self-honesty and transparency. These qualities may be some of the pre-requisites for collaboration.

What happens to the cooperation when the need is fulfilled? That's not a good question. As with any system that grows, the nodes' needs keep evolving as well, and it is up to the partners to make sure they still fulfill the evolving needs of their partners, if they still need their partners.

What if the founding economic principle of the scarcity of resources turned out to be a myth, an unverifiable assumption? The fact that technology hasn't learned yet how best to extract energy from our environment (the universe at large) isn't a proof in itself. The only conclusion is that there is a constant momentary scarcity of resources, brought about by humans onto themselves, as if under the spell of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But the principle of scarcity has important consequences. It establishes the legitimacy of competition as the higher behavioural value at all levels of the individual and society, at the expense of its dual, cooperation. Indeed, the all-importance of competition is currently being questioned by economic scientists and game theorists.

The issue of fairness in P2P music exchange is complicated. On one hand, it is universally accepted that the traditional business model of music labels is not compatible with the Internet. It is also universally suspected that it does not properly retribute the artists, and that it leads to over-priced products.

On the other hand, free-rolling file sharing completely bypasses both middleman and artist to let listeners find their music online, free of charge. The businessmen are fuming. But it is useful to remember that recorded music was originally intended as *promotional* material for the actual live performances, before the record made centerstage and the big-business marketing machine started manufacturing hits for profit.