Foward Thinking: How Megacities Are Changing the World

Forward Thinking: How Megacities Are Changing the World
Millions of people every year swell the planet's cities. How do we harness the economic potential of these powerful hubs?
JamesHertling | May 27, 2016 — 3:55 AM CDT

We live in the age of the megacity.

For the first time in human history more people now live in urban settlements than in rural ones, and those urban locales are growing ever bigger. Every year, Lagos, Africa's biggest city, grows by the population of Boston.

Within 10 years, about two-thirds of the world's gross domestic product will be generated by cities, up from about half now.

Most of that growth will come from the emerging world, especially China and India, meaning the stakes to get growth and development right are increasing rapidly.

The challenges range from ensuring clean streets to confronting the impact of climate change. In Rio de Janeiro, the military roams the streets to crack down on crime; in Lagos, policy makers who have often left residents to their own devices now have to introduce governance without wrecking structures developed over the years.

Then there's the massive seawall for Jakarta to ensure the city's not swamped by rising seas and metro lines being planned for all over India and the race to put up affordable housing in London.

From mayors and local councilors to presidents and prime ministers, getting cities right is more than a local and national question – it's one for all of us.

video here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-27/forward-thinking-how-megacities-are-changing-the-world

TED Presentation on Megacities - 05.31.2016

"I want you to reimagine how life is organized on earth," says global strategist Parag Khanna. As our expanding cities grow ever more connected through transportation, energy and communications networks, we evolve from geography to what he calls "connectography." This emerging global network civilization holds the promise of reducing pollution and inequality — and even overcoming geopolitical rivalries. In this talk, Khanna asks us to embrace a new maxim for the future: "Connectivity is destiny."

video here:

How megacities are changing the map of the world | Parag Khanna
Published on Apr 27, 2016




You see, while people focus on secession, The Agenda moves forward.
-Spyda

Cashless Society Update: If I put a chip in my own hand, is that The Mark of the Beast?

After watching that you're probably thinking...

"Oh Lord Jesus, it's The Mark of the Beast!"

Well, it's close:

Revelation of John 13:15-17
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
   
We'll know it's the Mark when we see two things happen:

1) The Beast has to be here for this to qualify as The Mark. At the moment, no one has come forward to make that claim.
2) The Mark will be deployed Globally. currently very few people are actually using RFID in their hand to buy items at stores. As a matter of fact it's such a small number of people you don't know anyone in your life doing that right now.

So relax. It's just one more step.
-Spyda

Transhumanism Update: 04.13.2016

I've been a little busy lately, but I saw this and thought it needed a mention.

Chip, Implanted in Brain, Helps Paralyzed Man Regain Control of Hand
By BENEDICT CAREYAPRIL 13, 2016


Ian Burkhart, who is paralyzed, playing a guitar video game as Nick Annetta, an electrical engineer at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, watched. Credit The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Battelle

Five years ago, a college freshman named Ian Burkhart dived into a wave at a beach off the Outer Banks in North Carolina and, in a freakish accident, broke his neck on the sandy floor, permanently losing the feeling in his hands and legs.

On Wednesday, doctors reported that Mr. Burkhart, 24, had regained control over his right hand and fingers, using technology that transmits his thoughts directly to his hand muscles and bypasses his spinal injury. The doctors’ study, published by the journal Nature, is the first account of limb reanimation, as it is known, in a human with profound paralysis.

Mr. Burkhart had a chip implanted in his brain two years ago. Seated in a lab with the implant connected through a computer to a sleeve on his arm, he was able to learn by repetition and continual practice to pour from a bottle, and to pick up a stirring straw and stir. He could even play a guitar video game.

“It’s crazy because I had lost sensation in my hands, and I had to watch my hand to know whether I was squeezing or extending the fingers,” Mr. Burkhart, a business student who lives in Dublin, Ohio, said in a telephone interview. His injury had left him paralyzed from the chest down; he still has some movement in his shoulders and biceps.

The new technology is not a cure for paralysis. Mr. Burkhart could only use his hand when connected to computers in the lab, and the researchers said there was much work to do before the system could provide significant mobile independence.

But the field of neural engineering is advancing quickly. Using brain implants, scientists can decode brain signals and match them to specific movements. Previously, people have learned to guide a cursor on a screen with their thoughts, primates have learned to skillfully use a robotic arm using only neural signals and scientists have shown in primates that thoughts can move arm muscles. This new study demonstrates that the bypass approach can restore critical skills to limbs no longer directly connected to the brain.


The new technology is not a cure for paralysis, and researchers said there was much work to do before the system could provide significant mobile independence. Credit The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Battelle

“It’s quite impressive what they’ve shown, this sequence of movements to pick up and pour something and pick up a stirrer — it’s an advance toward a goal we all have, to provide as much independence to these patients as possible,” said Rajesh Rao, the director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the University of Washington.

After his injury, Mr. Burkhart rehabilitated for months in Atlanta before continuing his care at Ohio State University, near his home. There, he told doctors that he would be willing to participate in experimental treatments.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” Mr. Burkhart said. “But it did mean I had to have brain surgery — surgery that I didn’t need.” His family was against it, but in time he wore them down, he said.

In 2014, a surgical team at Ohio State used brain imaging to isolate the part of his brain that controls hand movements. The area is in what is known as the motor cortex, on the left side of his brain and just above the ear. During the surgery, the team did extensive testing on the exposed brain tissue to further narrow down the location.

“The operation took three hours, and we spent an hour and half working to find the exact location,” said Dr. Ali Rezai, the surgeon and director of Ohio State’s Center for Neuromodulation. Dr. Rezai implanted a chip the size of an eraser head in the area. The chip holds 96 filamentlike “microelectrodes” that record the firing of individual neurons.

more here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/health/paralysis-limb-reanimation-brain-chip.html


Video for Context:

Transhumanism: Becoming Gods -- Official Newswatch Magazine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ82uFVGkAY

-Spyda

Thomas Jefferson and Islam

President Obama today:




This was a great read.
I'll highlight the things that stood out.

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Obama, Thomas Jefferson and the fascinating history of Founding Fathers defending Muslim rights
By Elahe Izadi February 3 at 2:35 PM


Thomas Jefferson, lithographed and published by H. Robinson, N.Y., created between 1840 and 1851. (Library of Congress)

This post has been updated with President Obama's comments. The Fix originally wrote about Thomas Jefferson and Muslims in December.

Muslims are at the center of a roiling debate over religious freedom in the United States. But they've actually been a part of that heated conversation from the very beginning of the nation's founding.

"Islam has always been a part of America," President Obama said during his first visit to a U.S. mosque Wednesday.

Indeed, a number of the Founding Fathers explicitly mentioned Muslims — along with other believers outside the prevailing Protestant mainstream — as they outlined the parameters of religious freedom and equal protection.

"When enshrining the freedom of religion in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, our Founders meant what they said when they said it applied to all religions," Obama said Wednesday at the Islamic Society of Baltimore. "Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans, and Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom that he wrote was designed to protect all faiths — and I'm quoting Thomas Jefferson now — 'the Jew and the gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan.'"

Muslims, who were also alluded to in those years as "Turks," did live in this country at the time, Obama said. An estimated 20 percent of enslaved Africans were Muslim, but much of the citizenry at the time didn't acknowledge that Muslims existed in America, according to several historians.

So unlike Jews and Catholics, Muslims were discussed in the hypothetical — and often with negative opinions, including those held by Jefferson — to show "how far tolerance and equal civil rights extends," said Denise Spellberg, author of "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders."

"In the formation of the American ideal and principles of what we consider to be exceptional American values, Muslims were, at the beginning, the litmus test for whether the reach of American constitutional principles would include every believer, every kind, or not," Spellberg said in an interview.

Thomas Jefferson's defense of religious liberty

Jefferson authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and asked that it be one of just three accomplishments listed on his tombstone. The Virginia law became the foundation of the religious freedom protections later delineated in the Constitution.

Virginia went from having a strong state-established church, which Virginians had to pay taxes to support, to protecting freedom of conscience and separating church and state. Jefferson specifically mentioned Muslims when describing the broad scope of protections he intended by his legislation, which was passed in 1786.

"What he wanted to do was get the state of Virginia out of the business of deciding which was the best religion, and who had to pay taxes to support it," said Spellberg, a professor of history and Islamic studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

During the bill's debate, some legislators wanted to insert the term "Jesus Christ," which was rejected. Writing in 1821, Jefferson reflected that "singular proposition proved that [the bill's] protection of opinion was meant to be universal."

He continued:

    Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan [Muslim], the Hindoo [Hindu], and Infidel of every denomination."

Jefferson's opinions on religious liberty were heavily influenced by John Locke, as noted by James H. Hutson, writing in 2002 as chief of the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division:

    In his seminal Letter on Toleration (1689), John Locke insisted that Muslims and all others who believed in God be tolerated in England. Campaigning for religious freedom in Virginia, Jefferson followed Locke, his idol, in demanding recognition of the religious rights of the "Mahamdan," the Jew and the "pagan." Supporting Jefferson was his old ally, Richard Henry Lee, who had made a motion in Congress on June 7, 1776, that the American colonies declare independence. "True freedom," Lee asserted, "embraces the Mahomitan and the Gentoo (Hindu) as well as the Christian religion."

James Madison, whose views on religious liberty aligned with Jefferson's, helped usher the Virginia bill to final passage. In a document arguing against religious taxes that received thousands of signatures, Madison referenced foreign religious persecution — specifically the Inquisition.

He also argued that separation of church and state would actually promote Christianity, writing that an open society would be welcoming to those "remaining under the dominion of false Religions." Establishing an official church, he wrote, "discourages those who are strangers to the light of revelation."

'Clearly going out of their way'

It's not as if Muslims were an overarching concern for early Americans, a Monticello scholar says.

"There just wasn't a large Muslim presence" in the United States — at least not an acknowledged one, said Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.

"The real significance" was that Muslims were mentioned at all, O’Shaughnessy said, pointing to specific mentions of Muslims in "several petitions" — some written by Baptists — in favor of Jefferson's religious freedom statute.

"It is very significant because they were clearly going out of their way to show just how broad and complete was the idea of religious freedom," O’Shaughnessy said.

Indeed, it wasn't just Jefferson and Madison who were discussing the bounds of religious freedom in the crucial Virginia debate, said historian John Ragosta, author of numerous books on Jefferson and religious freedom.

"Baptists and Presbyterians were really demanding religious freedom in the 18th century because they were dissenters from the established church," Ragosta said. "And they were talking about Muslims and ‘infidels’ and Jews."

Evangelicals had been subjected to religious persecution not long before. Prior to the American Revolution, more than half of Virginia's Baptist ministers were jailed for preaching, Ragosta said. "These people knew what they were talking about."

Opponents of Jefferson's proposal wrote letters to the Virginia Gazette, arguing that it would allow atheists, Muslims and Jews to hold office — to which evangelicals responded, “that’s right,” Ragosta said.

The Hanover Presbytery sent a series of statements to the Virginia General Assembly during the debate on Jefferson's statute. In one, supporting freedom of religion and opposing a state-established religion, they mentioned Muslims:

    In this enlightened age, and in a land where all of every denomination are united in the most strenuous efforts to be free, we hope and expect that our representatives will cheerfully concur in removing every species of religious as well as civil bondage. Certain it is that every argument for civil liberty gains additional strength when applied to liberty in the concerns of religion, and there is no argument in favor of establishing the Christian religion but what may be pleaded with equal propriety for establishing the tenets of Mohammed by those who believe the Al Koran.

Ragosta said that while people have more recently argued that "separation of church and state and religious freedom that applies to everybody is a 20th-century invention — no, it was something that was being talked about and thought about” during the founding of the United States.

A Muslim president?

At the time, Muslims were often grouped together with others who were viewed negatively or were outside of the religious mainstream, such as Catholics and Jews, said Spellberg, the "Islam and the Founders" author. While a Muslim citizen was theoretical, a Catholic one was not. And worries that a Catholic president would hold an allegiance to a foreign pope persisted well into the 20th century, during the campaign of John F. Kennedy.

Many early Americans supported religious tests to guard against such a prospect. And once again, Muslims were mentioned in debates over whether to ratify a constitution that explicitly forbade such tests.

During North Carolina's 1788 constitution ratification debate, Muslims were mentioned five times, Jews seven times and Catholics 10 times, according to Spellberg. The connection between the presidency and Islam was raised three times.

During the North Carolina debate, anti-Federalist Henry Abbot argued that eliminating a religious test meant it would be possible "that pagans and deists, and Mahometans might obtain offices among us, and that the senators and representatives might all be pagans," as noted in Spellberg's book.

Federalist James Iredell, dubbed "the ablest defender of the Constitution," then mounted his counter-argument — while also trying to convince skeptical delegates that it was highly unlikely citizens would elect officials with beliefs so out of the mainstream.

"It is to be objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices," Iredell said. "But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for?”

Eliminating religious tests was a major source of contention in New England. Madison wrote to Jefferson in 1788 that "one of the objections in New England was that the Constitution by prohibiting religious tests opened a door for Jews, Turks and infidels."

Jefferson on religion

Such defense of religious liberty didn't leave Jefferson immune to criticism. He was eventually accused of being an atheist and "infidel."

“Thomas Jefferson’s opponents tried to stir things up by suggesting that he was a Muslim; so, I was not the first," Obama said as the audience at the Islamic Society of Baltimore laughed. "No, it’s true. Look it up. I’m in good company.”

Raised in the Anglican church, Jefferson came to be associated with tenets of Unitarianism while remaining reluctant to publicly speak about his personal beliefs.

He clearly favored Christianity as one of the greatest blueprints for a moral code. At one point, he asked a scientist friend to complete a comparative study of the world's major religions "to extract the essence they had in common," said O’Shaughnessy, the Monticello scholar.

"He saw Jesus as a great social philosopher in setting out the greatest system of morals, but no doubt he thought, if you integrated other faiths as well, you could even improve the system," O’Shaughnessy said.

Jefferson rejected miracles, and reason reigned supreme for him. In one letter, he urged his nephew to "question with boldness even the existence of god."

In 1765, while he was studying law, Jefferson purchased an English translation of the Koran. He later went on to criticize the religion as anti-science and anti-reason.

Despite his personal opinions, however, Jefferson staunchly defended the right of Americans to hold any religious belief, no matter how absurd or wrong they seemed to him.

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others," Jefferson wrote in "Notes on the State of Virginia," his only book. "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

This post was originally published on Dec. 11, 2015.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/11/how-thomas-jefferson-and-other-founding-fathers-defended-muslim-rights/

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I've already written about Thomas Jefferson:

Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian?
http://globalistnews.blogspot.com/2014/08/was-thomas-jefferson-christian.html




In conclusion, the reason the Elite have had it so easy to dismantle the Constitution is pretty is simple:

They wrote it as a broad document.

Think about it.

-Spyda

Putting a 'Spotlight' on the Agenda

You've probably heard about the film Spotlight:



Spotlight (film)

Spotlight is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Tom McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer.[4][5] The film follows The Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative unit in the United States,[6] and its investigation into cases of widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic Priests. It is based on a series of stories by the real Spotlight Team that earned The Globe the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.[7] The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup.[8]

more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_%28film%29

Here's an update.

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More people have come forward with sex assault allegations after the film Spotlight

Jen Mills for Metro.co.uk Saturday 30 Jan 2016 4:49 pm



More victims of sexual assault have found the courage to come forward after watching Oscar-nominated Spotlight, it has been claimed.

The film tells the true story how investigative reporters from the Boston Globe uncovered child molestation and its cover-up within their local Catholic church in 2001.

In an interview with the Independent, the Globe’s editor-at-large Walter Robinson said the film had made a huge impact on the public ‘in a way that the printed word never could have’.

‘More victims are coming forward because of this film,’ he claimed.

more here:
http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/30/more-people-have-come-forward-with-sex-assault-allegations-after-the-film-spotlight-5653435/

If you have not seen this film, I suggest you do.
These journalist did such a great job exposing what has been going on within the Catholic Church.

The sad truth is, it won't stop with the voting of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, any man or woman running for office.

It only stop after Joel Chapter 2.



I'm waiting for the Kingdom.
-Spyda

P.S.

Did you notice the tag line in this poster?



'Read Between The Lies'

A play on 'Read Between The Lines'

Very clever.

Cashless Society Update - 01.31.2016

The blockchain will be used by major banks and corporations to control transactions and access.

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IBM, J.P. Morgan, and Others Build a New Blockchain For Business
by  Stacey Higginbotham  @gigastacey  DECEMBER 17, 2015, 12:01 AM EST



Bitcoin is out and the Open Ledger Project is in.

IBM, Intel, J.P. Morgan and several other big banks are among those making a big bet on blockchain, the distributed transaction processing engine behind cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The companies have joined forces to create the Open Ledger Project with the Linux Foundation, with the goal of re-imagining supply chains, contracts and other ways information about ownership and value are exchanged in a digital economy.

IBM is contributing thousands of lines of existing code based on its research into the blockchain based on a years-long research effort. Digital Asset, a company that makes software for designing blockchains, is contributing the Hyperledger name to the project, which will be used for branding the effort, as well as code and developer resources.

The Open Ledger Project isn’t proposing another cryptocurrency, but rather wants to use blockchain technology to create tools to allow businesses to build a distributed ledger for anything they can dream up–from exchanging automotive titles in seconds to paying retail suppliers when a sale is made.

Because the ledger is both connected and distributed, it is easy to track changes to the database and difficult to forge entries or delete them. Honduras uses the technology to track land titles and musicians use using it to let fans pay them directly for songs.

Jerry Cuomo, an IBM Fellow working with the Open Ledger Project, says he wants to help create a distributed ledger to offer businesses privacy, confidentiality and accountability. In many cases when customers came to IBM considering something like Ethereum or Bitcoin, they are worried about their data being stored in the larger community. Even big banks are cautiously embracing blockchain, as opposed to Bitcoin.

One of the options the Open Ledger Project tech provides is a way to limit the community of users who have access to the ledger. A company that chooses to implement a version of an Open Ledger blockchain can elect to use rules that determine who can generate transactions and even authenticate them. In Bitcoin for example, anyone who can do the mining work required to generate a Bitcoin generates a transaction. There’s no velvet rope or possibility of a closed door.

But to make blockchain for business, this element of limiting participation was essential.

“I don’t have a strong opinion on cryptocurrencies, but I have a strong opinion on the blockchain as a solution for contracts and supply chains and the internet of things, Cuomo says. “I think Bitcoin is an interesting application for blockchain but there are thousands of applications and wider use cases beyond that.”

more here:
http://fortune.com/2015/12/17/ibm-blockchain-for-business/

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Bring On the Cashless Future
45 JAN 31, 2016 5:00 PM EST

By Editorial Board
Cash had a pretty good run for 4,000 years or so. These days, though, notes and coins increasingly seem declasse: They're dirty and dangerous, unwieldy and expensive, antiquated and so very analog.

Sensing this dissatisfaction, entrepreneurs have introduced hundreds of digital currencies in the past few years, of which bitcoin is only the most famous. Now governments want in: The People's Bank of China says it intends to issue a digital currency of its own. Central banks in Ecuador, the Philippines, the U.K. and Canada are mulling similar ideas. At least one company has sprung up to help them along.

Much depends on the details, of course. But this is a welcome trend. In theory, digital legal tender could combine the inventiveness of private virtual currencies with the stability of a government mint.

Most obviously, such a system would make moving money easier. Properly designed, a digital fiat currency could move seamlessly across otherwise incompatible payment networks, making transactions faster and cheaper. It would be of particular use to the poor, who could pay bills or accept payments online without need of a bank account, or make remittances without getting gouged.

For governments and their taxpayers, potential advantages abound. Issuing digital currency would be cheaper than printing bills and minting coins. It could improve statistical indicators, such as inflation and gross domestic product. Traceable transactions could help inhibit terrorist financing, money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and corruption.

The most far-reaching effect might be on monetary policy. For much of the past decade, central banks in the rich world have been hampered by what economists call the zero lower bound, or the inability to impose significantly negative interest rates. Persistent low demand and high unemployment may sometimes require interest rates to be pushed below zero -- but why keep money in a deposit whose value keeps shrinking when you can hold cash instead? With rates near zero, that conundrum has led policy makers to novel and unpredictable methods of stimulating the economy, such as large-scale bond-buying.

A digital legal tender could resolve this problem. Suppose the central bank charged the banks that deal with it a fee for accepting paper currency. In that way, it could set an exchange rate between electronic and paper money -- and by raising the fee, it would cause paper money to depreciate against the electronic standard. This would eliminate the incentive to hold cash rather than digital money, allowing the central bank to push the interest rate below zero and thereby boost consumption and investment. It would be a big step toward doing without cash altogether.

Digital legal tender isn't without risk. A policy that drives down the value of paper money would meet political resistance and -- to put it mildly -- would require some explaining. It could hold back private innovation in digital currencies. Security will be an abiding concern. Non-cash payments also tend to exacerbate the human propensity to overspend. And you don't have to be paranoid to worry about Big Brother tracking your financial life.

Governments must be alert to these problems -- because the key to getting people to adopt such a system is trust. A rule that a person's transaction history could be accessed only with a court order, for instance, might alleviate privacy concerns. Harmonizing international regulations could encourage companies to keep experimenting. And an effective campaign to explain the new tender would be indispensable.

If policy makers are wise and attend to all that, they just might convince the public of a surprising truth about cash: They're better off without it.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-31/bring-on-the-cashless-future

================================================

Previous Posts:

cashless society - 05.09.2014
http://globalistnews.blogspot.com/2014/05/cashless-society-05092014.html

Is Cash Still King? - Cashless Society Update - 10.19.2014
http://globalistnews.blogspot.com/2014/10/is-cash-still-king-cashless-society.html

For those who think they will have to force people to take The Mark
http://globalistnews.blogspot.com/2014/11/for-those-who-think-they-will-have-to.html

gold, predictions, and the real agenda - 2013 - 12.31.2013
http://globalistnews.blogspot.com/2014/03/gold-predictions-and-real-agenda-2013.html

-Spyda