What, How, Why - The social changes around the world

What: Arab Spring
How: a TED talk by Clay Shirkey in 2009 and Derek Sivers in 2010, The Matrix film also heralds the SYSTEM FAILURE as the end scene and is in many ways a parallel to the upheavals.
Why:

• Authoritarian states
• Demographic structural factors
• Government corruption
• Human rights violations
• Inflation
• Kleptocracy
• Sectarianism
• Unemployment
• Pan-Arabism

Why:

• Democracy
• Free and fair elections
• Human rights
• Regime change

One little note is that 60000 may be dead by now and that Obama might get a second Nobel for changing the US policy of supporting stability(read: dictators) to supporting democratic efforts in 2010.(The paradox being that this change cost lives. Who knows maybe it was the minimal possible, but in my heart there is doubt.)
As it happens this blog did earlier raise that pungent issue, of supporting dictators and evil regimes.

We made God

So claims C. Hitchens. No, surely he does not mean that we have created the eternal, absolute, creative power that caused the Universe...
Yes! From the point of view that we have made an image of God and the belief that there is only a representation. This does not, however refute that such an image represents something real, or something that is to be. Nor that this image could be a connection or a channel to the idea of the absolute.
Indeed it is that for many people. Those who believe have some advantage in their lives. Recourse to solace, serenity and trust, reminder to connect with fellows as brothers and sisters. This pragmatic argument however could be , anything useful for a believer could be useful for another and in another's hand - a source of abuse.
Without an actual god we could still have a sense of wonder at the spectacular world, but do we need to the euphoria if it is just us at the top of the heap?

Adam Smith and sources of profit

Profit
Rent

Wages

Ways to increase profit:

Increasing income
Reducing costs
Protecting profits

Embedded education

If it is possible to gamify work with programming and interface design and engineering it seems that it is plausible to do an upgrade of gamification -  turning games into education software and improving the mind in ways similar to Lumosity. It is possible to employ IT in placing knowledge and ideas in games where these would factor a part in gaming success.

Boredom, vice and need

Voltaire thought these three evils would  haunt the unemployed. Taking a look at most of the work that followed from that time when work was reduced to simple tasks by rampant deskilling that accompanied division of labour and the introduction of machines to workplaces. Work caused boredom.
Boredom being a major factor in thrill-seeking and the resort to hedonistic pursuits and idleness, work has increased vice rather than decreased it. Is there anyone complaining? This trend is increasing the more robots that are employed.
The amount of work done altogether has however increased and poverty has been lowered across the world.
However with the gamification of work it is possible to see an end to both boredom and possibly a concurrent end to poverty altogether. The ever increasing development of the complexity of what brings on boredom needs a concurrent development in gamification. Another factor to consider is the calssification of causes of boredom. One could be bored when the tasks ahead seem unachievable or impossible to understand in terms of the knowledge base accessible among the community. Equally one might be bored at doing the same repetitive tasks that require unchallenging mental faculties for performance.

The Absurd: Inquisitive and Imperative escape routes

When learning about forms of statement I noticed there being two different forms of judgment statements that are not absurd and then the absurd form of judgment statements. I draw a parallel and show that the existentialism of Camus is itself now at the border of meaning, carrying on to the possibility that there is meaning therefore in science(the inquisitive statements) and both ethical(imperative -how to follow rules(of life)) and political (imperative - how to make rules for living) spheres. Recall Descartes pondering on a similar theme. Therefore there is a meaning of life since all off these tracks may be meaningless by being absurd. Meaning cannot be reduced to absurdity, that once it is there it continues as part of human knowledge and be a fruit of the mind to be consumed by countless sets of generations to come.