by the meltingpot: The coming of the Americans.

Now Reading!

Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

Now at 2nd place

My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

This is the 3rd

Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Friday, January 15, 2016

The coming of the Americans.

That the agitators in Churachandpur had chosen 1st to 5th Feb as the first leg of their ptogramme of agitation should act as an eye-opener for everybody.

It even prods us to ask this question--

'What will happen on the 21st of January 2016?'.

Of course,the missing link between the above statement and the question is the Americans.We have to remember that there is a pattern breaking event in Imphal on the 21st of January,mainly inspired by the Americans.

In my humble opinion,what we are seeing is the starting point heralding the call of the West to its supporters in Manipur to come out openly and challenge the constituent within the Manipuri society espousing the formation of an anti-West coalition.

In a more mundane speak,its the duel between Western-style growth story and Chinese-style growth story.

Would the supporters of the West in Manipur come out openly and start challenging their opponent on an ideological level?

I have no idea when will they do that but one thing is quite certain--the Americans are definitely nudging them to do so.

As we starts speaking about the Americans,it's definitely possible that they are becoming increasingly impatient with the pace of their ally,the Indians, in fighing that constituent within the Manipuri society which espouses the formation of the anti-West coalition.

As we are apparently confronting a looming ideological war,it's an imperative that this blogger states his own opinion about the subject.As any growth story happens within the matrix of a political environment,I think I should start with it.

Let's go hyper-local.

I think vast majority of peope in our society would agree with me that the winning candidates in the recent bye-election to the two Assembly constituencies in the heart of Imphal need to be disqualified at the very outset.They have no agenda except grabbing power.They are flesh and blood manifestations of what Barack Obama hinted as the evil impact of money on the body politic of any society.We also need not go to a far away country like the US to see things in perspective.Here,in our homefront votes are purchased openly.In the recent two bye-elections price per vote had risen dramatically--they are willing to fork out Rs 5000/-per vote.

Even if we say that the system can be reformed so that it may reach the level of what the Ameriacans are having at the moment,should we go for that option?I have no direct knowledge of the conditions in the US but it's quite certain that if you no money you have no hope to become a player in American politics.Even Barack Obama hinted at the problem in his recent State of the Union address.And,most importantly,the gains from the growth achieved through this American political system is so unevenly distributed that there is now open discussion whether the system would become untenable any time soon.

As we have gone this far,we have to ask ourselves--'What about the Chinese model?'

The Communist Party of China actually screened the aspiring candidtates for elections in Hong Kong.Is this acceptable?Before answering this question we must state that the distribution of the gains from the Chinese-style growth is more tolerable.

In other words,we all think that there should be some vetting of the candidates.The problem arises when it comes the statge where we ask loudly who should do the vetting.

Everybody knows that we are face to face with a really tough situation.But I should express my opinion fearlessly.

1)We should utilize the service of Artificial Intelligence,something like IBM's Watson to do the vetting.There is strong possibilty that AI would overtake human in intelligence around 2048.So,AI is a strong candidate to do the task of vetting.

2)Everyone who plans to go to political arena should be prepared to sacrifice substantial portion of his private space to public scrutiny.In our case,the AI agent should have access to his educational,medical and social engagement records from an early age in his life.We might even devise an empathy metrics for the candidates.

3)Then,we can devise a scale to vet the aspiring candidates for any election.For example,in the scale of 0-10 any candidate should get 8 to be eligible to fight an election.

If we go this far,we can tell our American friends that we need not make a choice between the Western and Chinese models.We should be left alone so that we can make our own choices according to our needs and dreams.We need to politely let it be known to our American friends that if any agency starts interfering in our affair,we are ready for a good fight.

by the meltingpot

Now Reading!

Now at 2nd place

This is the 3rd