Feb 19 2013: The talk resumes complexity to flow of money in links between nodes (companies). Complexity (and dynamics, equilibrium) however exist at other levels!
- each node is not only controlling other nods , through its capacity to act in proportion of its share in downstream companies. It also influenced by other nods, upstream . The proportion or balance of upstream control (or dependency) and downstream or power control is surely even more important to consider than just downstream control.
- the strength of a control is sometimes modulated by thresholds. 2 to 6 time more money invested in a pathway may change a little, while 7 to 8 times can produced tremendous changes
- then the delay in acting is some time critical, adding complexity. When a strong chain of actions though 10 nods is longer to operate than a weaker chain through 3 nods, the later can influence more decisively.
- the difference in delay of downstream flow (of information or actions), and upstream flow can potentiate a strength and orientation in control, or oppositely a lability of information/action effects: when a company can detect and analyse the effects of final consumption of a good in real-time or before consumers are aware of that, before consumers have cleared the credit to pay goods and can move to the concurrence, then the company controls perfectly the market evolution, can adapt its offer, so consumers live degree of liberty is not sufficient to make real changes to their advantage. An asymmetrical relationship.
- the number of action pathways also renders the control more direct or global, reversible or quite irreversible, at few or multiple levels...
So, who controls the world/a system ? Surely key potent actor/companies drive the global flow, but their control surely resides not only in their money and capital shares, but also upstream information flow and dynamics.
Feb 6 2013: Yet (and first!), try to use better energy and spare water! If energy efficiency (of production and notably of its use) is the first source of energy, water reasonable consumption is another key for sustainability in Qatar! Qatari should learn from Israel to this point. This will also reduce toxic brine (salt) produced by desalinization. Furthermore, water sparing may renew Qatar traditional culture, rather than to copy US or Europe or Brazil. I.e. is it needed a full Air Conditioning, that seems to account a lot in water consumption.
It looks like that Qatar spends oil, money and efforts for education (nice), but also for to many luxurious things or image (football) –a NewBabylon?-. How to be comfortable with that, if neighboring countries remain poor?
Take benefits of your richness, but remember richness can lead to easiness going to short term solutions,… so work for you and others, create, innovate! Ask yourself if you want to grow as a replicate of occident (who used charcoal), always 'more' growth, production, consumption, equipment, or if you want to build your own technologies and values (about water, culture, education, work) –your present and future strengths-.
Forget a little market needs, and even your energy richness (oil) or potential (solar). But invest in sustainable methods and a proper way of life, rapidly as Qatar has now the capital to do this.
Feb 6 2013: Qatar is a nice model for the rest of the world, to show how a providential resource can serve goodness (free education, nice living places, higher life level,…). But it would a shame that this rapid start (60 years) continues in the way of using fossil energy (and developing expensive solar photovoltaics) to desalt sea water while produced water is wasted as never in other country. I fear that Fahad plan to secure food and energy by solar PV and legislation, is not sufficient!
The development of Qatar based on Oil is a chance, but
- relying on only one energy source (oil) is risky not only for Qatar, but for anybody on the earth: You (Fahad) missed to say that using this energy has a cost in oil, pollution, carbon imprint, and finally global climate.
- as you said, you have to count on other energies. Surely solar energy is providential in Qatar, and to be exploited. But it is also much more expensive, and not so green as it is said.
- water: using oil (even quite free one) to produce electricity (?40% yield) to produce water (how many watts per liter?) remains very expensive. Using photovoltaic will be even worse in term of yield and price: at best 20% yield from solar rays to electricity, very large PV panels needed.
Distillation of sea water using direct sun heating and cooling vapor in the sea surely would be more efficient – but less 'easy' to operate: this is the price to pay for a sustainable alternative. There is surely space for developing innovative technologies of this old method (and cheaper than PV) , for Qatar specific situation. Qatari people should invest there! -. But also for other applications, and issues integration! I.e. doing agriculture between panels (to reduced insulation, evaporation,…).
Jan 28 2013: The title was attractive, but after 5 min of personnal history, Powel tells quite nothing about the "structure of education" that kids need, and he is claiming for: or it is rather poor, limited to and confused with discipline + consideration or the mother, family and friends. Experience (and success) in military do no give him skills relevant to civil education, if not opposite! yet, how he talks to children sounds interesting to consider, and can be usefull in some cases and situations. A large secund part of the speech say it is important to "give a good start to children" , and that' quite all.
Not a TED talk : it do not opens mind, it do not give a nice insight nor a wise point of view.
Oct 21 2012: In the (past) slow-working world you have time to get right information, interprete it and elaborate logical and optimized answers and actions. Doing mistake produce key signals, helpful to improve further acts, individually and collectively. Individual personality can build itself, strong and deep, in collaboration with or against collective values - a well identified culture -.
Acting in our modern and turbulent environment/world needs more intuitive and emotionnal behaviours. Individuals try to be heard and influence others. Mistakes participate to the background noise. Personality grow either on primary instincts or on collective values -not a culture, but a cloud-.
Our goverments and we individuals should forgot to pursuit productivity, speed, growth... and remind what are the upstream goals: enrich our body (eating, moving) and our mind (learn from, and learn to) sharing that in a sustainable community and environment.
Sep 22 2012: Liked the talk, and fully agreed with Dania Shen's comment -a nice resume-. Lets this discussion learn us to choose and decide only when we trust in our feeling for one option (eventuelly despite reason), or when we trust in our reason (eventually despite feeling). Out this clear situation of choice, lets have the reflexe:
-to detect if there is no clear difference between options and/or or simply to many options. The choice may appear no more important, just as a way of doing a thing, as a way of communicating, or to cut a set of options with one or fex criteria.
-to question ourself if the power of choosing is not a way, for who tell us the question, to obtain something from us, even abuse us, while we do not really have needs, or need to make the choice.
-to realise if we use the power of choice simply to affirm one-self.
-if the choice to still appears really important and urgent -if not critical or deathly-, with no clear "good" option, or to many pros/cons, forget the choice as an individual choice, but as a collective choice or as a fate.
Aug 6 2012: Nice talk, but I agree with several comments:
a-she should have cited previous works in this direction. Her results would then have not only highlighted things but also opened new directions (justifying to tell about 'discovery')
b-her enthousiast and didactism is really appreciated, but sometimes overcomes scientific approach
c-it is great to show changes in cancer cells related to changes in microenvironment. Now, talking about a role of ECM onto cancer cells should be documented with mechanisms. May this rule out or combine with the more commonly described opposite effects (cancer cells induce changes in their membrane, signaling, ECM), or may this be just the same mechanisms working in opposite way?
May no real mechanism of ECM on cancer cells exist, but just cancer cell evolve to a neutral state in some ("good") microenvironments, and then will re-engage its cancerous evolution once ("bad") microenvironment occurs.
d-See Brian comment Jul 19 2012, for a nice reminder of general belivings of genetic mechanisms, and a clarification where Mina explanations are focuzing.
Surely Mina results and hypothesis helps to understand some aspects of cancer.
Dont forget that cancer is not one disease, but that each cancer has probably different specific mechanisms.
e-Putting Mina hypothesis as a therapeutic approach looks rather early and not less easy as conventional approaches, if not, less easy: treatments of multiple factors at ECM levels? injections or micro-chirurgy to change microenvironment?
Apr 5 2012: Nice and important topic for the becoming of our societies. The discussion open us more to drawbacks that to pros of new communication technologies.
Let’s think to the arrival of communication ways we now accept largely, like pictures (from painting in caves to argentic and numeric photos), bicycles, not-mobile telephones, TV... These inventions changed the way human communicate and even its interests. Even manufactured things (clothes, a roof, tools, a statuette or a game...) replaced the naturals things and ways to live with the environment, with others, and with oneself as human.
So, let’s contemplate or even envisage that keeping in connection through a mobile phone or internet, with others (one best school friend, a virtual person), may be just a new pathway, beside the ‘normal’ ones, real/direct vision, discussion, visits,..
Yet, it appears that these new communications are so attractive and rich that we forget to use or substitute old ones, and finally this “compromise our capacity of reflection”, “We expect more from technology and less from each other”, “we pay less attention to the other”, we forgot to experience sensual inside introspection,…
Thanks to Sherry Turkes for explaining us why, and how to be aware and correct this trend (and threat!). There is a space for using the new communications technologies to complete and combine with ‘natural’ communications, rather that phagocyting them. Else, our lives are becoming with technology just assays – recorded, duplicable, modifiable, everlasting-, rather than creative feeling, experience and evolutions –temporal, physical, sensual-.
Feb 9 2012: A long, rather poorly argued and finally not convincing talk.
But war is also difficult to argue, and never convincing opposite parties.
So, is Peter van Uhm making finally a better job by its talk than with its gun?
War (and hate, violence,...) is creating discontinuous and strained equilibria in our world pushing to a differentiation of identities, lobbies,... A large quantity of energy is immobilized in weapons/defense things, while a small piece of energy is then sufficient to power big changes, which stability is artificial and has to find new ways to sustain. This generates more visible evolutions.
No-war reciprocical mode (goodwilling, forgiveness,...) is creating mixed (or chimeric) equilibria of compatible people and actions, pushing to reciprocal exchanges of ideas, money, materials... Evolution is gradual. Identities are less centered to them selves, but on general thema. A large quantity of energy is used also, but more homogenously, and irrigates other levels, with a long-term global better efficiency. See Generous Tif of Tat model of reciprocical / defection / costly punishment bahaviors at http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~drand/rand_ohtsuki_nowak_2009_jtb.pdf (thank to Dave Gould for the link!)
Anarchy takes principles of both. A theory of the "cost of anarchy" explains 1/3 of spent energy is spent to maintain a social equilibrium. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_anarchy
Sep 16 2011: 1.do each day one thing to accomplish myself, and one to allow it (earning money, caring my family,…)
2.develop a system to capture solar light -70% yield- and dispense it simultaneously, depending on needs, as light, electric energy, or heat in houses -with minimal energy conversion losses-.
3.do things related to the nature: gardening, open-air sport, observing or studying nature, biotechnologies… and at each opportunity communicate to anyone we have to care about nature
4.(currently) fight against a building purchase operation in the mountains that is designed to stole small owners, and finally to build new buildings while the existing ones are not fully occupied.
5.learn always something from everything, and share this knowledge, through discussions, Wikipedia, … with the hope humans can use their intelligence in daily life to serve better the humanity and living biosphere.
TEDCred score: +0.60 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.
A comment on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
- each node is not only controlling other nods , through its capacity to act in proportion of its share in downstream companies. It also influenced by other nods, upstream . The proportion or balance of upstream control (or dependency) and downstream or power control is surely even more important to consider than just downstream control.
- the strength of a control is sometimes modulated by thresholds. 2 to 6 time more money invested in a pathway may change a little, while 7 to 8 times can produced tremendous changes
- then the delay in acting is some time critical, adding complexity. When a strong chain of actions though 10 nods is longer to operate than a weaker chain through 3 nods, the later can influence more decisively.
- the difference in delay of downstream flow (of information or actions), and upstream flow can potentiate a strength and orientation in control, or oppositely a lability of information/action effects: when a company can detect and analyse the effects of final consumption of a good in real-time or before consumers are aware of that, before consumers have cleared the credit to pay goods and can move to the concurrence, then the company controls perfectly the market evolution, can adapt its offer, so consumers live degree of liberty is not sufficient to make real changes to their advantage. An asymmetrical relationship.
- the number of action pathways also renders the control more direct or global, reversible or quite irreversible, at few or multiple levels...
So, who controls the world/a system ? Surely key potent actor/companies drive the global flow, but their control surely resides not only in their money and capital shares, but also upstream information flow and dynamics.
A comment on Talk: Fahad Al-Attiya: A country with no water
It looks like that Qatar spends oil, money and efforts for education (nice), but also for to many luxurious things or image (football) –a NewBabylon?-. How to be comfortable with that, if neighboring countries remain poor?
Take benefits of your richness, but remember richness can lead to easiness going to short term solutions,… so work for you and others, create, innovate! Ask yourself if you want to grow as a replicate of occident (who used charcoal), always 'more' growth, production, consumption, equipment, or if you want to build your own technologies and values (about water, culture, education, work) –your present and future strengths-.
Forget a little market needs, and even your energy richness (oil) or potential (solar). But invest in sustainable methods and a proper way of life, rapidly as Qatar has now the capital to do this.
A comment on Talk: Fahad Al-Attiya: A country with no water
The development of Qatar based on Oil is a chance, but
- relying on only one energy source (oil) is risky not only for Qatar, but for anybody on the earth: You (Fahad) missed to say that using this energy has a cost in oil, pollution, carbon imprint, and finally global climate.
- as you said, you have to count on other energies. Surely solar energy is providential in Qatar, and to be exploited. But it is also much more expensive, and not so green as it is said.
- water: using oil (even quite free one) to produce electricity (?40% yield) to produce water (how many watts per liter?) remains very expensive. Using photovoltaic will be even worse in term of yield and price: at best 20% yield from solar rays to electricity, very large PV panels needed.
Distillation of sea water using direct sun heating and cooling vapor in the sea surely would be more efficient – but less 'easy' to operate: this is the price to pay for a sustainable alternative. There is surely space for developing innovative technologies of this old method (and cheaper than PV) , for Qatar specific situation. Qatari people should invest there! -. But also for other applications, and issues integration! I.e. doing agriculture between panels (to reduced insulation, evaporation,…).
A comment on Talk: Colin Powell: Kids need structure
Not a TED talk : it do not opens mind, it do not give a nice insight nor a wise point of view.
A comment on Talk: Eddie Obeng: Smart failure for a fast-changing world
Acting in our modern and turbulent environment/world needs more intuitive and emotionnal behaviours. Individuals try to be heard and influence others. Mistakes participate to the background noise. Personality grow either on primary instincts or on collective values -not a culture, but a cloud-.
Our goverments and we individuals should forgot to pursuit productivity, speed, growth... and remind what are the upstream goals: enrich our body (eating, moving) and our mind (learn from, and learn to) sharing that in a sustainable community and environment.
A comment on Talk: Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing
-to detect if there is no clear difference between options and/or or simply to many options. The choice may appear no more important, just as a way of doing a thing, as a way of communicating, or to cut a set of options with one or fex criteria.
-to question ourself if the power of choosing is not a way, for who tell us the question, to obtain something from us, even abuse us, while we do not really have needs, or need to make the choice.
-to realise if we use the power of choice simply to affirm one-self.
-if the choice to still appears really important and urgent -if not critical or deathly-, with no clear "good" option, or to many pros/cons, forget the choice as an individual choice, but as a collective choice or as a fate.
A comment on Talk: Mina Bissell: Experiments that point to a new understanding of cancer
a-she should have cited previous works in this direction. Her results would then have not only highlighted things but also opened new directions (justifying to tell about 'discovery')
b-her enthousiast and didactism is really appreciated, but sometimes overcomes scientific approach
c-it is great to show changes in cancer cells related to changes in microenvironment. Now, talking about a role of ECM onto cancer cells should be documented with mechanisms. May this rule out or combine with the more commonly described opposite effects (cancer cells induce changes in their membrane, signaling, ECM), or may this be just the same mechanisms working in opposite way?
May no real mechanism of ECM on cancer cells exist, but just cancer cell evolve to a neutral state in some ("good") microenvironments, and then will re-engage its cancerous evolution once ("bad") microenvironment occurs.
d-See Brian comment Jul 19 2012, for a nice reminder of general belivings of genetic mechanisms, and a clarification where Mina explanations are focuzing.
Surely Mina results and hypothesis helps to understand some aspects of cancer.
Dont forget that cancer is not one disease, but that each cancer has probably different specific mechanisms.
e-Putting Mina hypothesis as a therapeutic approach looks rather early and not less easy as conventional approaches, if not, less easy: treatments of multiple factors at ECM levels? injections or micro-chirurgy to change microenvironment?
A comment on Talk: Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?
Let’s think to the arrival of communication ways we now accept largely, like pictures (from painting in caves to argentic and numeric photos), bicycles, not-mobile telephones, TV... These inventions changed the way human communicate and even its interests. Even manufactured things (clothes, a roof, tools, a statuette or a game...) replaced the naturals things and ways to live with the environment, with others, and with oneself as human.
So, let’s contemplate or even envisage that keeping in connection through a mobile phone or internet, with others (one best school friend, a virtual person), may be just a new pathway, beside the ‘normal’ ones, real/direct vision, discussion, visits,..
Yet, it appears that these new communications are so attractive and rich that we forget to use or substitute old ones, and finally this “compromise our capacity of reflection”, “We expect more from technology and less from each other”, “we pay less attention to the other”, we forgot to experience sensual inside introspection,…
Thanks to Sherry Turkes for explaining us why, and how to be aware and correct this trend (and threat!). There is a space for using the new communications technologies to complete and combine with ‘natural’ communications, rather that phagocyting them. Else, our lives are becoming with technology just assays – recorded, duplicable, modifiable, everlasting-, rather than creative feeling, experience and evolutions –temporal, physical, sensual-.
A comment on Talk: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun
But war is also difficult to argue, and never convincing opposite parties.
So, is Peter van Uhm making finally a better job by its talk than with its gun?
War (and hate, violence,...) is creating discontinuous and strained equilibria in our world pushing to a differentiation of identities, lobbies,... A large quantity of energy is immobilized in weapons/defense things, while a small piece of energy is then sufficient to power big changes, which stability is artificial and has to find new ways to sustain. This generates more visible evolutions.
No-war reciprocical mode (goodwilling, forgiveness,...) is creating mixed (or chimeric) equilibria of compatible people and actions, pushing to reciprocal exchanges of ideas, money, materials... Evolution is gradual. Identities are less centered to them selves, but on general thema. A large quantity of energy is used also, but more homogenously, and irrigates other levels, with a long-term global better efficiency. See Generous Tif of Tat model of reciprocical / defection / costly punishment bahaviors at http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~drand/rand_ohtsuki_nowak_2009_jtb.pdf (thank to Dave Gould for the link!)
Anarchy takes principles of both. A theory of the "cost of anarchy" explains 1/3 of spent energy is spent to maintain a social equilibrium. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_anarchy
A comment on Conversation: WHAT IF your top 5 personal ideas met collaborative action, write here. A TED BUCKET LIST of ideas worth spreading w/ angels in the wings.
2.develop a system to capture solar light -70% yield- and dispense it simultaneously, depending on needs, as light, electric energy, or heat in houses -with minimal energy conversion losses-.
3.do things related to the nature: gardening, open-air sport, observing or studying nature, biotechnologies… and at each opportunity communicate to anyone we have to care about nature
4.(currently) fight against a building purchase operation in the mountains that is designed to stole small owners, and finally to build new buildings while the existing ones are not fully occupied.
5.learn always something from everything, and share this knowledge, through discussions, Wikipedia, … with the hope humans can use their intelligence in daily life to serve better the humanity and living biosphere.