Reads: Greece's Unemployed Young, Drones & More
[A wrap up of some of the interesting reads from across the Web.]
Greece's Unemployed Young: A Great Depression Steals the Nation's Future - Businessweek
Reeling under a severe economic crisis for the last few years, Greece has been experiencing nothing but the worst. From political instability, escalating violence, soaring unemployment figures to new-born babies being abandoned by poverty-stricken parents in clinics, the country has seen it all. Businessweek examines the societal repercussions of the crisis:
Across the continent, a prolonged slump has disproportionately affected the young, with nearly one in four under the age of 25 out of work, according to the European Commission... pledges of help [have] come too late for Greeks like [Tina] Stratigaki, who are already spending what should be the most productive years of their lives poring over notice boards and alternating long periods of unemployment with all-too-brief periods of work. "Our generation has depression," says Stratigaki. "We are at the best age. We have the power to do everything. And we can’t do anything." >>
How urban Chinese workers helped cause the great recession - Quartz
The USA has been largely the center of attraction for what can be considered the reasons for the economic downturn in the last decade. The financial crunch not only affected the country's economy, but also unleashed a domino effect that continues to grip several nations worldwide. Experts may have blamed the financial agencies for failing to properly assess the risks associated with mortgage instruments, which in turn led to the housing bubble of 2006-2007, but a new study undertaken by Ravi Jagannathan and his colleague has revealed a new side to the story:
Technological advances and globalization sparked “a huge and rapid increase” in the labor supply from workers in the developing world, especially in China. But without any domestic financial markets capable of absorbing the new wealth these workers generated, large amounts of money flowed into the US. For its part, the US had no controls in place to prevent financial institutions from finding creative new ways to accommodate the influx of cash. >>
The Drone That Killed My Grandson - The New York Times
Drones have been a point of controversy of late. That they can demolish the concept of privacy notwithstanding, drone attacks have become the norm to deal with terrorists. And the USA, which has been quite zealous in its employment of unmanned aerial vehicles in combat, has been the most reluctant to admit its goof-ups when innocents are killed in the country's supposed war on terror.
I learned that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died. The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.
I visited the site later, once I was able to bear the pain of seeing where he sat in his final moments. Local residents told me his body was blown to pieces. They showed me the grave where they buried his remains. I stood over it, asking why my grandchild was dead. Nearly two years later, I still have no answers. >>
The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ - The New York Times
As a convenient portal to look up for the right information at the right time and the right place, search giant Google has indeed come a long way since its 'Don't be Evil' days. The New Digital Age, written by its executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Project Glass head Jared Cohen, is a step towards establishing a new world order through technology (read Google), writes Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in this opinion piece on the Times:
This book is a balefully seminal work in which neither author has the language to see, much less to express, the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. “What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th century,” they tell us, “technology and cybersecurity companies will be to the 21st.” Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces — forever. Zealots of the cult of consumer technology will find little to inspire them here, not that they ever seem to need it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy. >>
Everest: from mythical peak to the world's highest garbage dump - The Guardian
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay achieved the impossible when they scaled the world's tallest mountain peak 60 years ago, and set the ball rolling for future expeditions to come. Thirty years after being opened for commercial tourism, Mt. Everest is slowly turning to be the world's highest garbage dump, writes Nick Hunt on the Guardian:
Our species has been too successful. I'm not saying we should stop adventuring, or lose the desire to explore the unknown – indeed, as our civilisation becomes increasingly disconnected from the natural, non-human world, it's vital that we do – but the vision of 1953 can't be the vision of today. We know too much for that now. The question is, having conquered the world, where do we go from here? >>
Greece's Unemployed Young: A Great Depression Steals the Nation's Future - Businessweek
Reeling under a severe economic crisis for the last few years, Greece has been experiencing nothing but the worst. From political instability, escalating violence, soaring unemployment figures to new-born babies being abandoned by poverty-stricken parents in clinics, the country has seen it all. Businessweek examines the societal repercussions of the crisis:
Across the continent, a prolonged slump has disproportionately affected the young, with nearly one in four under the age of 25 out of work, according to the European Commission... pledges of help [have] come too late for Greeks like [Tina] Stratigaki, who are already spending what should be the most productive years of their lives poring over notice boards and alternating long periods of unemployment with all-too-brief periods of work. "Our generation has depression," says Stratigaki. "We are at the best age. We have the power to do everything. And we can’t do anything." >>
How urban Chinese workers helped cause the great recession - Quartz
The USA has been largely the center of attraction for what can be considered the reasons for the economic downturn in the last decade. The financial crunch not only affected the country's economy, but also unleashed a domino effect that continues to grip several nations worldwide. Experts may have blamed the financial agencies for failing to properly assess the risks associated with mortgage instruments, which in turn led to the housing bubble of 2006-2007, but a new study undertaken by Ravi Jagannathan and his colleague has revealed a new side to the story:
Technological advances and globalization sparked “a huge and rapid increase” in the labor supply from workers in the developing world, especially in China. But without any domestic financial markets capable of absorbing the new wealth these workers generated, large amounts of money flowed into the US. For its part, the US had no controls in place to prevent financial institutions from finding creative new ways to accommodate the influx of cash. >>
The Drone That Killed My Grandson - The New York Times
Drones have been a point of controversy of late. That they can demolish the concept of privacy notwithstanding, drone attacks have become the norm to deal with terrorists. And the USA, which has been quite zealous in its employment of unmanned aerial vehicles in combat, has been the most reluctant to admit its goof-ups when innocents are killed in the country's supposed war on terror.
I learned that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died. The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.
I visited the site later, once I was able to bear the pain of seeing where he sat in his final moments. Local residents told me his body was blown to pieces. They showed me the grave where they buried his remains. I stood over it, asking why my grandchild was dead. Nearly two years later, I still have no answers. >>
The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ - The New York Times
As a convenient portal to look up for the right information at the right time and the right place, search giant Google has indeed come a long way since its 'Don't be Evil' days. The New Digital Age, written by its executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Project Glass head Jared Cohen, is a step towards establishing a new world order through technology (read Google), writes Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in this opinion piece on the Times:
This book is a balefully seminal work in which neither author has the language to see, much less to express, the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. “What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th century,” they tell us, “technology and cybersecurity companies will be to the 21st.” Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces — forever. Zealots of the cult of consumer technology will find little to inspire them here, not that they ever seem to need it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy. >>
Everest: from mythical peak to the world's highest garbage dump - The Guardian
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay achieved the impossible when they scaled the world's tallest mountain peak 60 years ago, and set the ball rolling for future expeditions to come. Thirty years after being opened for commercial tourism, Mt. Everest is slowly turning to be the world's highest garbage dump, writes Nick Hunt on the Guardian:
Our species has been too successful. I'm not saying we should stop adventuring, or lose the desire to explore the unknown – indeed, as our civilisation becomes increasingly disconnected from the natural, non-human world, it's vital that we do – but the vision of 1953 can't be the vision of today. We know too much for that now. The question is, having conquered the world, where do we go from here? >>
Comments
Post a Comment