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Bill Clinton Calls Many Political Leaders Out of Touch with the Acceleration of Technology at Fortune Summit
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Bill Clinton Calls Many Political Leaders Out of Touch with the Acceleration of Technology at Fortune Summit
Bill Clinton calls many political leaders out of touch with the acceleration of technology, recommends Non Zero by Robert Wright and The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil.
Originally published August 3, 2001 on KurzweilAI.net.
ASPEN, Colorado, Aug. 3, 2001 -- Former President Bill Clinton said many political leaders are "out of touch" with the acceleration of technology, speaking at Brainstorm 2001: The Fortune Editor's invitational summit conference here.
Bill Clinton spoke for a half hour from a single page of handwritten notes, and then engaged in a dialog with several other participants. He spoke about the rapidly broadening interrelatedness of all the world's societies, and the need to develop greater cooperation between nations to deal with issues that are increasingly international in nature. He pointed out that borders are often inconsequential in the face of new technologies.
He acknowledged that the protesters at recent economic summit meetings have a wide range of valid concerns regarding environmental and human rights issues, but that the commonly expressed view among the protesters that the emerging internationalization of the world's economy was the cause of these problems was fundamentally wrong. He described how the enormous increases in international trade and economic cooperation that we've seen in recent years have created enormous wealth, which can be shown to have provided profound benefits for the world's poor.
However, Mr. Clinton pointed out, the new communication technologies have also created greater awareness of disparities in wealth among the peoples of underdeveloped nations. He called for greater steps in debt forgiveness, a movement he said had been endorsed by people as diverse as the Pope, Jesse Helms, and Bono of the rock group U2.
Clinton said he has been actively encouraging policy makers, as well as audiences that he speaks with, to read about the future, and in particular to understand the enormous impact that future technologies will bring. He recommended several books including Non Zero by Robert Wright, which calls for programs and agreements in which all parties benefit, and The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil, which he called a "compelling view of the future."
Stu Kauffman asked how international programs and institutions can avoid crushing indigenous cultures. Clinton replied that emerging trade agreements and policies need to strengthen and respect the wealth of divergent cultures in the world while engaging emerging societies in the world economy. He cited the enormous latent wealth in underdeveloped countries in the form of local talents that are not adequately harnessed because of the lack of adequate financial and credit institutions.
Ray Kurzweil, citing the numerous accelerating and intersecting revolutions in biotechnology, computing, communications, and the neural sciences, described the potential to greatly ameliorate the problems of poverty that Mr. Clinton had spoken about, while at the same time introducing grave new dangers. Kurzweil pointed out that the specter of a terrorist being able to create a bio-engineered pathogen was not far away, and that nanotechnology will increase these stakes further. He asked how very slow moving international organizations like the United Nations can be made to move quickly enough to deal with both the promise and peril of these intensifying developments.
The former President replied that policy makers in the United States and around the world do not spend enough time and attention understanding science and technology and their enormous implications. He described how busy his wife was just keeping up with the day to day demands of the legislative process, and that few political leaders have or take the time to look beyond today's political agenda. He encouraged more forums such as this Fortune summit where political and scientific leaders can reflect on where society is headed and to explore ideas that would harness technology to alleviate the poverty of one billion people living on less than $1 per day.
He also cited programs he had put into place to make preparations for new forms of terrorism, including the potential use of biological and information-based weapons, indicating that his administration had been sensitive to making needed preparations without causing alarm.
The three-day conference includes about 100 leaders from the worlds of technology, business, government, and culture. John Huey, Editorial Director of Time, Inc. described the event as "the smartest people we know expounding on the challenges and opportunities of the future." The October issue of Fortune will be devoted to the conference and the ideas of the participants.
Other featured guests giving presentations or on plenary panels include Madeline Albright (former Secretary of State), Ben Affleck (actor, screenwriter), Marc Andreessen (founder of Netscape), Zoe Baird (philanthropist), Jim Barksdale (former CEO of Netscape), Stewart Brand (author, founder of Long Now Foundation), David Brown (legendary producer), Helen Gurley Brown (former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan), John Doerr (legendary venture capitalist, partner of Kleiner Perkins), Michael Eisner (CEO of Walt Disney Company), Bill Gross (CEO of IdeaLab!), Bill Joy (cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun, futurist), Stu Kauffman (chaos theorist), David Kessler (former head of the FDA), Joel Klein (former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, CEO of Bertelsmann Inc.), Jaron Lanier (virtual reality pioneer), Regis McKenna (legendary consultant), Ray Ozzie (chief developer of Lotus Notes), Larry Page (cofounder and CEO of Google), Paul Saffo (futurist), Eric Schmidt (former CTO and CEO of Sun, Chairman of Novell), Larry Smarr (supercomputing pioneer), Ann Winblad (venture capitalist), and others. Also participating are 24 editors of Fortune magazine.
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Re: Streamlining the UN
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"Ray Kurzweil's question about transforming or enabling the UN to act quicker to international technological threats or opportunities didn't get any answers (based on the news posting). Iím curious to hear suggestions to optimize the UN, besides the obvious use of communications technology to make meetings and member voting more convenient and not location based."
If by "enabling the UN to act quicker to international technological threats" it is supposed to be desirable, I don't buy it. I'm sorry but the last thing we need is some agency or global government with weapons or command of armies. The UN is over-rated and dangerous. Most of the time it does not foster peace but instigates (petty) global infighting. The UN is an obsolete organization with a very dangerous Charter. Some time read it's charter and it will BLOW your mind. Get a copy of the UN Charter and the U.S. Consitution and set them side by side. First read the U.S. Consitution (as it came first in history). Then read the UN Charter.
The thing that you will notice most about the UN Charter is the following:
1) It provides only civil rights and NOT inalienable rights throughout. What this means is that, contrary to the increadible visionaries who founded the United States and their express intentions in the Consitution, the UN Charter stipulates that humans have NO rights except for those rights that are "granted" by government. If this is true, then the United States has NO RIGHT to be independent from King George's England.
2) It provides endless escape clause throughout for more government to be imposed upon its subjects. There are few, if any, pure principles expressed in the UN Charter, just lawyers' endless loopholes and cover-your-ass-clauses where additional language can be incerted into the Charter any time the powers-that-be decide, in their sole discretion, that such language "needs" to be incerted. This, therefore, exposes the proposed "world citizen" to considerable liability and the threat of tyranny.
Besides points 1 & 2 above, which are good enough reasons in themselves for abolishing the UN, they are NOT even the most ciritical reason for abolishing it. The most vital reason for abolishing the UN is that it violates a primarty tenet of nature -- the principle of redundancy. If, God help us, we ever have a central governing authority WITH significant military capabilities -- it is only a matter of time before cultures on Earth are doomed, if not Earth iself. If such a global authoritative entity were to malfunction, we would have NO back ups because we would have no redundancy. The world's financial markets are already bad enough because they are so tightly interconnected by computer transactions. A crash in the U.S. crashes other economies. A crash in Japan causes serious repercussions in the U.S. The "electronic global herd," which investors are always talking about, is the aggragate of money (trillions of dollars) that flows all over the planet influenced by Bloomberg-type computer screens. This is nothing less than a HUGE bull in a china shop. It's unwise and dangerous. It's unsettling to steady growth and it's nothing less than superficial gambling motivated by mercenary profit motives, most of the time. The people, companies and countries that NEED capital the most, to grow or have a chance, are thus subjected to this HUGE global, fiancial crapshoot called the financial and currency markets. The bull sloshes around causing havoc for businessmen while the Federal Reserve makes things even worse by independently manipulating the cost of money via the Fed's alter ego, the IMF/World Bank. We are living in VERY dangerous times and the ONE thing you want to have when the SHIT hits the fan is redundant systems -- not some global government or bank (run by a VERY small elite of CFR members).
So the UN should definately be abolished, as should the IMF/World Bank.
Sure free, global trade is great, sure the ECC is great, sure it's great to have standards and a certain amount of homogeneous currency -- but NOT at the sacrifice of redundancy. And certainly not by empowering an entity, such as the UN, with an extremely anti-Constitutional mandate and little understanding of the technological we are confronting.
James Jaeger
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Re: Streamlining the UN
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I have in the past been an idealogical "fan" of the popularly understood purpose of the United Nations. Global cooperation and free trade benefit humans and societies, with "trickle down" benefits for all.
But, I confess, like in other areas in which I found "I did not know *what* I did not know", there is a little recognized bit of anti-individualism the UN is trying to pull off.
The UN is trying to disarm the citizens of the global village. This is misguided, dangerous, and nieve, in my opinion.
I am not a "conservative redneck" by any stretch of the imagination. But I am proud to be an NRA member. Their well researched monthly magazine, "First Freedom", identifies the threats to personal liberty that the UN in its present form represents.
Liberty, and political persuasion, often grows out the barrel of a gun. Mao was wrong about a lot of things, but he got this one fact right.
I do not want an "effective and streamlined" UN if it means allowing only members of the "state" the means to defend themselves.
Rudi Hoffman |
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Re: Streamlining the UN
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>I have in the past been an idealogical "fan" of the popularly understood purpose of the United Nations. Global cooperation and free trade benefit humans and societies, with "trickle down" benefits for all.
Right, so was I until I looked at the UN in greater detail, actually READ its Charter and got some idea of WHO is behind it. Read THE FEARFUL MASTER by G. Edward Griffin.
>But, I confess, like in other areas in which I found "I did not know *what* I did not know", there is a little recognized bit of anti-individualism the UN is trying to pull off.
To the Nth degree!
>The UN is trying to disarm the citizens of the global village. This is misguided, dangerous, and nieve, in my opinion.
That's right. The same elements are trying to disarm American citizens as well. Many of these elements are in the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry. A disarmed citizenry is a direct violation of the Constitution and the Founders' intention.
>I am not a "conservative redneck" by any stretch of the imagination. But I am proud to be an NRA member. Their well researched monthly magazine, "First Freedom", identifies the threats to personal liberty that the UN in its present form represents.
>Liberty, and political persuasion, often grows out the barrel of a gun. Mao was wrong about a lot of things, but he got this one fact right.
That's right. It's interesting to observe that whenever Gov/Fed-infested Media mentions either:
a) Gun control
b) NRA
c) Gun-related violence
. . . whenever a, b or c are mentioned, the phrase "tyrannical government" is NEVER mentioned concomitantly. Check for this. Next time you're watching CNN or FOX News, or any of the major MPAA-infested news media, your will be able to note the strange ABSENCE of this term, "tyrannical government." Yet this term is PIVITOL; it's the pivotal REASON the Founders wanted an armed citizenry. To protect the citizens from a tyrannical government. An armed citizenry is one of the CHECKS AND BALANCES in our government. Just like the division of power through the three branches of government: EXECUTIVE, JUDICIAL and LEGISLATIVE. Just like the TERM LIMITS. Just like the ELECTORAL COLLEGE (which exists for reasons most people do NOT yet understand).
An armed citizenry provided a CHECK against a TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT by providing the citizenry with a forcible method of removing people from the government, in whole or in part, any time a majority of the People vote by referendum that this must be done in order to preserve INALIANABLE RIGHTS (first) and CIVIL RIGHTS (second). When did CNN, the "New York Times" or the DISCOVERY CHANNEL tell you THAT? Never. This is a major OUT POINT, and the omission of a VITAL datum, an omission that tells any student of investigatory procedure or data analysis that something is not logical. A truly UNBIASED media that reports 'ALL the news that's fit to report' AND which works IN the public interest -- would NEVER EVER omit such a datum, a datum that is VITAL to the public well-being.
But, of course, such is not the case, as 80% of the media is owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the MPAA studio/distributors and these entities form the propaganda backbone of the entrenched, vested interests in the U.S. government as supported, and infiltrated, by the 5,500 members of the Council on Foreign Relations (the elite employment roster and think tank of the government and all other major institutions financed through fiat currency and bent on the removal of inalienable rights of citizens).
Anything that happens in the U.S., in connection with the above, will more than likely set the paradigm for what will happen in the UN on a global scale. Thus America MUST get back to Constitutional principles. The U.S. may be 250 years old, but that is only a tiny bit of time when you consider that the Chinese Empire is over 4,750 years old. Thus, what the Framers embodied in the Constitution is relatively fresh and relevant to today's world. We are still a young country full of hope and zest and built upon the corrected mistakes of millennia. Don't let anyone tell you differently. And one of the guarantees of this liberty with BOTH civil AND inalienable rights is an armed citizenry. The Constitution is still quite relevant. And this relevance, means that Article I, sections 8 & 10 should be observed. Thus, the Federal Reserve System -- which is nothing more than a group of elite, private bankers stealing the productivity of the nation through the hidden tax of inflation -- must be abolished, as such a fiat-currency based system is in direct violation of Article I, sections 8 & 10.
>I do not want an "effective and streamlined" UN if it means allowing only members of the "state" the means to defend themselves.
That's exactly right. If the US or the UN were ever to rescind citizens' rights to bear arms, the ONLY people that WOULD be armed would be those that worked for the government. Under such a scenario, it is almost certain that there would eventually be tyranny and totalitarianism. And remember, the techies of the world right now are creating the mechanisms to implement this, the WORST kind of tyranny -- a sort of high-tech, feudal totalitarianism. THUS, those in the theoretical and applied sciences MUST take responsibility for:
a) WHAT technology they create;
b) HOW that technology is used;
c) WHO they allow to use that technology.
The time is past where ignorant or power-hungry politicians and businessmen should run roughshod over the interests of the "global community." If a truly Nonzero Sum World is to be brought about, scientists must:
a) REFUSE to work for ignorant or power-hungry politicians and businessmen;
b) DEMAND that bankers and investors grant them money for the creation of safe, redundant systems, BEFORE they agree to develop any further technology for other purposes.
Point b should include the abolition of any one (1) global government, especially an armed one (such as the UN), and any one (1) central bank at either the national level (the Fed) or the global level (the IMF/World Bank) and, MOST IMPORTANT of all: provide for the Human race to duplicate its habitat by exploring and colonizing new worlds, starting with Mars, immediately. (See CASE FOR MARS by Robert Zubrin.)
NO OTHER GLOBAL EXPENDITURES OF ANY KIND ARE SENIOR and anyone who tells you that they are is either a total idiot or an (uninformed) apologist of the status quo.
James Jaeger
>Rudi Hoffman
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Re: Bill Clinton Calls Many Political Leaders Out of Touch with the Acceleration of Technology at Fortune Summit
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James Jaeger wrote:
" I see no need for the UN when we have the NET -- as there is NO better forum for both leaders AND constituents to get together (anonomously OR not) and discuss the world's problems and solutions."
James,
I'll agree the UN doesn't work as a global government. It was formed to keep peace but hasn't the structure or authority to govern states.
However, it is the Internet that will drive us to replace the UN with a real global government. The Internet can't replace such a body. It is only infrastructure, a channel. It is something like the town meetings, newspapers and pamphlets of the 18th Century American colonies. When it came time to break from England a new government still had to be formed. The multitude of conversations across the colonies couldn't build consensus on issues that arise within a union.
When it comes time to unite the world, when our lives, habits, needs, cultures and conversations interact to such a degree that some consensus is necessary we will see a government formed. We will then be arguing the same issues Madison and Jefferson argued some 230 years ago concerning whether the central government should be strong or weak. And the argument won't end with the formation of a decision-making body just as it didn't end in the US with the formation of Congress.
The Internet, along with fresh technologies enabling global conversations across languages and cultural references, will enable this discussion.
As with the birth of any government, there is danger we will get it wrong. As strong as the US Constitution is it has been amended as needed. The real question is whether we have enough cool-headed, well-reasoned political minds across the globe to pull off the formation of a just and representative legislative body, a document supporting that body and the necessary campaigning to win support across billions of people. We seem to be a long way from any kind of unity across the globe at this time. The 13 colonies had a common enemy when they broke from King Henry. We seem to have a globe full of tiny factions with pockets of war and ideological skirmishes. We are starved for a global, unifying force - a sweeping reason to unite.
-- Carter Merkle |
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